GKN Aerospace

GKN Aerospace has announced it will work with a group of 13 partners to develop futuristic wing technologies.

Backed by the UK’s Aerospace Technology Institute, the £30m validation and integration of manufacturing enablers for future wing structures (VIEWS) programme will be led by GKN Aerospace.

VIEWS will primarily focus on creating wing design, manufacture and assembly technologies, and will be based on technologies emerged from the structures technology maturity (STeM) research programme.

It will identify tools and other manufacturing requirements to produce wing architectures and improve process design and flow of production.

The programme will also study inspection and repair tools and progress various composite and metallic manufacturing and assembly processes.

"VIEWS will primarily focus on creating wing design, manufacture and assembly technologies."

GKN Aerospace technical director Rich Oldfield said: "STeM saw us make valuable progress and VIEWS will work from that base, taking us nearer to market readiness with a new generation of automated processes and technologies that will extend what we in the UK are able to manufacture, at the same time as increasing the quality, consistency and speed of production."

Partners of the VIEWS programme include GKN Aerospace, Bombardier Aerospace, Spirit AeroSystems, and GE Aviation; UK’s five manufacturing catapult centres and the Universities of Nottingham, Bath, Bristol and Sheffield Hallam.

The partner companies will work together to produce test demonstrators as part of the validation process of key technologies.

GKN Aerospace recently unveiled a natural laminar flow wing concept for the next-generation aircraft.


Image: STeM winglet lower skin manufacture, using robotic fibre placement. Photo: courtesy of the National Composites Centre (NCC).

Defence Technology