The design of tooling for the aerospace industry has long been the domain of traditional methods and processes.
A sensor locating fixture under examination by the team at Airframe Designs. Image Credit: Airframe Designs
However, with the increasing use of additive manufacturing, the approach of blended design using both traditional and additive parts offers new opportunities using innovative thinking.
We are finding solutions to design for specific applications can be achieved more efficiently in a quicker turnaround time. With the aid of our additive department, we have successfully blended traditional tooling techniques with additive manufacture.
This was recently demonstrated with one of our Defence customers where we supplied lightweight, accurate and cost effective tooling within a much shorter lead time than would have been previously possible.
With our innovation and expertise, we are able to provide a full turnkey solution underpinned by digital design, stress analysis, and polymer additive, blended with our own traditional tooling supply chain.
Our wide range of tool design applications has grown steadily and we now span the key sectors of Aerospace, Defence, Marine & Space.
Typical tool design includes detail and assembly fixtures and jigs, drill, rout and trim fixtures, mould tools for composite hand layup parts, lifting and handling and transport equipment.
We currently serve multiple customers and utilize a range of CAD software that includes Catia, SolidWorks and Siemens NX. As well as our experience with CAD we are able to support our designs with all the necessary documentation to gain CE Marking for tooling products.
With our hand-scanning technology we are able to reverse engineer legacy tooling and create a digital twin. This can provide the customer with a dataset of the existing tooling that can be updated and modified and used in the lifecycle of the tooling.
All of our design activities have the support of our in-house Stress department who will provide analysis services ranging from hand calculations to FEM analysis if required.
Airframe Designs is industry-compliant with: ISO 9001, ISO14001 & ISO 27001 and we also hold Cyber Essentials Plus and JOSCAR accreditation.
The approach we take of finding solutions using all traditional and new methods is part of the Airframe Designs ethos of engineering excellence in everything we do.
Indeed, the skills set we can put together is growing at Airframe Designs using a combination of apprentices along with experienced aerospace engineers.
We are always on the lookout for individuals with the right experience and relevant skills, and we invite them to apply to join our team.