SelTec – Project
Selektive Oberflächen- und Herstellprozesstechniken für Faserverbund- und Hybridbauteilprodukte
The production of composite parts for the aerospace industry still involves a significant amount of manual work. Tasks such as filling, grinding, activating of surfaces and removal of small defects in the surface still require manual work. This leads to high costs of composite parts, especially for those that require high surface quality (e.g. interior parts). The costs are currently limiting the wider use of such materials in the aerospace industry.
This project aims at providing a solution by performing research in two different directions. Intelligent automation systems will be developed that integrate CAD data, sensor information and flexible manufacturing systems in order to automate production steps that are currently done manually. The focus will be on achieving high quality and on performing the tasks selectively and only in those areas of the part that need to be treated. As an alternative approach research will be done on in-mould-coating processes using highly reactive powder coatings. This will enable the creating of high surface quality in a single process step and those remove the need for any (manual) pre-treatment of surfaces.
The combination of these approaches will achieve a reduction of manual work by 40%-50%. The cheaper production process will enable a wider application of composite parts, so that the aerospace industry will benefit from increase load capacity, reduced fuel consumption of airplanes and fewer CO2 and NOx emissions.
The SelTec Consortium
In order to address the challenges of the SelTec project a network of Austrian research institutions and industry partners has been established, which will enable to bundle the respective competences in InMould-Coating, powder coating, and sensor systems for quality control and robot guidance. Research is done in close cooperation with leading companies from the aviation and automotive industry.
The SelTec project is funded by the FFG, TakeOff, 830376.