Public Funding for Boeing United Kingdom Limited

To develop and implement leading edge subtractive machining processes and industrial digitalisation technologies at Boeing UK Limited Sheffield in collaboration with the AMRC, making the Boeing UK Limited Sheffield facility the leading UK supplier of actuator components.

IHSS will replace traditional composite aerospace manufacturing methods with an automotive-derived, fully automated dry fibre/resin infusion process to provide a manufacturing method that can achieve high rate while improving the sustainability of composite manufacturing. It features high-rate pick and place, automated preforming and two-sided self-heated tooling to eliminate autoclaves and consumables. This will reduce the total takt time from approximately forty hours to less than four hours for large component fabrication and a reduction in non-recurring costs, recurring costs, factory footprint and greenhouse gas emission via reduced power consumption.

In this project a team of world experts in metallurgy, mechanical engineering, and machine learning will collaborate to build a Digital Qualification Platform for Additive Manufacture ("3D printing"). Additive Manufacture ("AM") has the potential to transform for the better the way a vast range of advanced components are manufactured. It can create objects that are lighter, more intricate and functional, and made from more advanced materials than other manufacturing technologies, and it can do so using less raw material and completely digitally, so no tooling is required. Full use of AM could transform prospects for lower-energy, lower-emission aeroplanes and cars, powered by more sustainable fuels, as well as creating new opportunities in electronics, medical implants, and many other markets. However, AM faces a major barrier to adoption: the cost of designing an optimal component, and proving beyond doubt that can do its job safely for as long as it is required. This has always been a challenge and an expense in aerospace, requiring many millions spent on expensive trials, but it is a particular hurdle for AM, as a novel technology which builds up a component from billions of tiny welds. This project aims to build a future in which new materials and components are designed and proved safe entirely by computational means, saving years of time and millions of pounds, as well as accelerating innovation in aerospace and elsewhere. It will do this by building a Digital Qualification Platform for AM materials and components, including software-packaged computational models and a world-class experimental facility, and demonstrating the Platform through the certification of a heat exchange component built during the project for test flight on a Boeing aircraft. Once applied to AM, the Platform will then be extended to speed innovation, decrease costs, and reduce waste in traditional manufacture. The Project will also create 46 highly-skilled new jobs now and over 2,500 by 2035\. The four-year project will be led by Alloyed, a high-growth technology business based in Oxford, and include Boeing, Renishaw, the manufacturer of AM hardware, TWI Ltd, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, Imperial College, and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield.

ReMake incorporates various existing approaches to **remanufacturing, refurbish, repair and direct use cycles** already in use by industry partners across Scotland. The 'ReMake Glasgow' project would further enable businesses to develop life extension and value retention practices within their products and systems, which is essential for meeting circular economy transition challenges. The Project has ambitious targets and benefits from prestigious industrial project partners, who have proven ability to drive economic growth, productivity, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion within the Glasgow City Region: * **Howden Compressors Glasgow** * **BA Maintenance Glasgow** * **Boeing Glasgow** * **SSE Renewables** * **Renewable Parts** * **Baker Hughes (supply chain in Glasgow)** * **ATS** Glasgow City Region (GCR) is aware that to capitalise from the green economy, vastly improved knowledge and experience are needed, and that transition requires disruptive innovation. **Currently, only 1.9% of UK and GCR manufactured products incorporate ReMake processes**, indicating that substantial barriers exist for key supply chain stakeholders, including knowledge, awareness, and confidence issues, which preclude technology adoption. ReMake Glasgow addresses this position by using **disruptive** **innovation** techniques, enabled through a newly created **regional 'ReMake Hub' capability with national-level impact**. The ReMake Glasgow Hub adheres to two founding principles: * Demonstrate ReMake value retention techniques for products and systems, enabling industrial take-up and economic and social prosperity for the region. * Ensure improved material and component circulation lifespan, directly impacting regional and national net-zero targets. ReMake Glasgow will **increase innovation and de-risk investment** for GCR companies through a three-strand approach: * **ReMake Technology Test Beds** * **Innovation Support Packages** * **Digital ReMake Framework** This will enable companies to **develop a route to market** for circular economy products, services and/or processes. This will provide a platform to lead nationally on **productivity, create highly skilled 'green jobs'** in businesses across the supply chain, and significantly contribute to the management of risks associated with climate change by targeting illusive Scope 3 emissions from embodied carbon. **ReMake Glasgow shall support Glasgow Green deal** ambitions and **underpin critical aspects of both the Glasgow and GCR Economic Strategies**, including climate emergency, the green economy, inclusive economy, and employment and skills. This will **increase GVA, innovation, regional productivity, and highly skilled jobs.** ReMake adoption clearly offers significant economic, social, and environmental opportunities **and will enable the UK and Scotland to achieve the Net zero target by 2050 and 2045 respectively**.

Existing fuel quantity measurement systems are safe and extremely reliable, but with less metallic material in future generation commercial aircraft wings the removal of any electrical conductors (wires) and electrical power sources from the wings and fuel tanks is extremely attractive. The Boeing FQIS project builds on two years technology research with AFE Ltd from Carterton to develop a fuel measurement system that removes the need for electrical power inside the fuel talks, while also removing the need to have electrical conductors in the aircraft wing.

Integration of non-traditional nacelle anti-icing and erosion protection technology to enable the manufacture of a composite engine inlet assembly, while improving acoustic attenuation and not compromising material durability. The improved inlet assembly will benefit aircraft performance through reduced drag.

Boeing, UK and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) are receiving funding from the ATI to fund research capital equipment as part of a research project to develop and evaluate new machining and casting technologies in a highly automated demonstration facility, which will manufacture actuator systems initially for commercial aircraft. The research will target a reduction in cost of 20% and a 25% reduction in waste, whilst increasing productivity by 30%. The research costs proposed in this project are essential if manufacturing costs are to be reduced for future manufacturing systems. These complex high value components could be manufactured in a low cost economy so it is essential the UK competes to keep this work in this country. It is envisaged that the technology developed in this project will be used in a new Boeing fabrication facility which Boeing plans to build adjacent to the AMRC Factory 2050 in Sheffield. Actuator components manufactured in Sheffield will be part of Boeing’s global supply chain and will be integrated into aircraft actuation systems and then into commercial aircraft. The project will initially focus on improving machining time and accuracy using complex algorithms, new adaptive measurement and control systems and developing new methods of sensing and providing feedback control. Cost reductions and increases in productivity will be achieved by increasing levels of automation. In parallel AMRC Castings will look at the potential to reduce the cost of casting aluminium gear casings

During wind tunnel testing of aircraft, the aerodynamic effects of jet engines are represented using one of two techniques. The vast majority of models use ‘Through Flow Nacelles’ (TFN), effectively open tubes, which do not represent any powered engine airflow. A small amount of more representative testing is achieved using Turbine Powered Simulators (TPS) to represent engine airflow, but this is expensive, cumbersome, and requires significant energy and fixed infrastructure to operate. A new generation of permanent magnet electric motors has recently been developed for the Formula 1 industry (primarily for kinetic energy recovery and power systems), which appear to have the power density necessary for the effective simulation of scaled jet engines. This project aims to further develop these motors, the associated test control infrastructure, and techniques, for successful aerospace wind tunnel testing. The aim is to deliver the representative effect of TPS techniques, whilst eliminating the associated fixed infrastructure, by using electric motors instead of a turbine. The outcome sought is the more frequent generation of high fidelity data at lower overall lifecycle cost.