Post-journey Reflection (Goodrich)

On the 14th November, I headed down to Goodrich for a learning journey to learn more about the production processes of Goodrich. Goodrich is an aerospace company which produces nacelles for aircraft engines. first, we were briefed and given a brief introduction to Goodrich's company structure as well as the nacelles manufacturing procedure. We were also given a chance to watch a video about how damage to aircraft were repaired. I personally found it quite tedious, it was a lot of work for just one tiny dent. The guy in the video had to repeatedly vacuum bag the entire composite layer to repair the dent. I can hardly imagine the amount of work that has to been done each day with the amount of aircraft flying everyday as well as the enormous amount of effort put into repairs. It would be good if it was possible to automate the whole process. perhaps this could be an area to look into. What was interesting though, is that Goodrich employs 3D software to draw their blueprints and models. This makes it much easier for the engineers to view them and removes the need for multiple models to be drawn in order to illustrate various angles. I also learned about how 70% of an aircraft is made up of composite which will fail suddenly when subjected to adverse conditions. As planes are subjected to external,internal load, stress test must be conducted on the nacelles to ensure they are able to withstand these forces. Also, the plane must be made lightning-proof.

After the briefing, we were given an opportunity to check out the various workstations in Goodrich. I personally found them quite interesting and enriching. The first station I went to was the kitting room. The room was kept at a low temperature-around 17 degrees celcius to preserve the shelf life of the composite material. Goodrich employs a conveyor belt type kitting table, though other kitting table exists. The kitting process maybe quick, however, the setup time takes quite a while. The next station I went to was the vacuum bagging station. Vacuum bagging is done by hand and is a very tedious process. The engineer has to lay layers upon layers of various material to prepare just one layer, while the aircraft usually uses up to 30 or more layers. As mentioned before, automating the process would make things alot easier.The last station I went to was the laser diode station. Here, two projectors utilises 6 laser diodes to display .ply files in real time to show the engineer just exactly how and where to place various composite materials. It even accounts for height differences when a layer of composite is added.

I can relate the use of thermocouples in the repair process of damaged aircraft to what we learned in school. The thermocouple is used to monitor the temperature of the heating blanket to ensure the cure cycle is correct. This is in line with what we learned of the thermocouple being used as a thermometer. Also, free-body diagrams are used to represent the forces which are acting on an object. We are taught to simpler free-body diagrams to represent forces as well.