Backed by the Australian Government’s iLAuNCH Trailblazer program, materials researchers at the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) will collaborate with Melbourne-based engineering services company, MEMKO, and aerospace manufacturer, Boeing Australia, on this project that will make spacecraft composite repairs faster and more efficient than ever before.
iLAuNCH Trailblazer Executive Director Darin Lovett said the project aimed to digitally transform the repair process for spacecraft and aircraft built from composite structures. He said, “MEMKO brings to UniSQ access to the Dassault Systèmes virtual twin software and their engineering expertise with these tools, which enables the virtual replication of a product along its whole lifecycle – from digital design through to manufacturing requirements or in this case, structural repair. Researchers will apply the digital tools to Boeing test cases to identify the most accurate and efficient aerospace maintenance repairs.”
Boeing’s Production Capability Manager, Mykl Devlin, said the company had already seen real value in applying digital twins to design and manufacturing processes within its programs. “We’re looking forward to partnering with UniSQ and embedding a PhD student at our Boeing Aerostructures Australia facility to further this research and to support the sovereign innovation ecosystem.”
Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE® Company, provides business and people with collaborative virtual environments to imagine sustainable innovations. By creating virtual twin experiences of the real world with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and applications, customers can redefine the creation, production and life-cycle-management processes of their offer and thus have a meaningful impact to make the world more sustainable. The software ecosystem at the heart of the iLAuNCH project is well regarded and crucial to the lifecycle sustainment of large-scale aircraft and spacecraft.
MEMKO Systems General Manager Ravi Jain said that as a Dassault Systèmes partner, they had been supporting industry primes, their supply chains and start-ups in Australia since 2007. He noted, “We have forged strategic partnerships with leading universities to develop workforce development and upskilling programs to address critical skills shortages within growing industry domains. The iLAuNCH program is vital for the growth of Australian sovereign space manufacturing capability and we are glad to partner with the University of Southern Queensland.”
Dr. Tristan Shelley from the UniSQ Centre for Future Materials will head the research, and said the ultimate goal was to achieve increased digitization of manufacturing processes for composite materials and said, “The virtual twin workflows we develop will be used for a case study focused on the repair of composite components to eliminate both engineering and laborious processes leading to more efficient and effective maintenance, repair, and operations of future fleets. The program will also work on the identification of filament winding pathway developments, particularly for complex components that cannot easily be supported by existing software. The linkage of vision tools in-situ during filament winding into the virtual twin is key to optimized manufacturing processes.”
To complete this iLAuNCH Trailblazer project, UniSQ is putting in place scholarships for three PhD opportunities to work alongside engineers and scientists at Boeing Aerostructures Australia and MEMKO in Melbourne, Brisbane and Toowoomba to help enhance the digitization of composite components.