The latest installations from Airbus, BEL Engineering and CERN.
Airbus’ Acoustic Lab
Airbus recently installed an acoustic lab in its Hamburg, Germany facility that for the first time allows it to investigate cabin noise and vibrations using a representative fuselage segment that approximates an A320-sized aircraft.
The new test platform at the Centre for Applied Aviation Research (ZAL) is a breakthrough in noise testing – which previously was evaluated by studying isolated components or during test flights.
“Noise is a highly sensitive topic,” explained Henning Scheel, who is co-leading research at the acoustic lab. “Some noises are easy to ignore, even at high volumes. Others are deeply annoying.”
The ZAL’s 8.5-metre-long fuselage demonstrator can be subjected to sound waves around its full circumference via a system of 128 individually controllable speakers. This setup was designed to replicate engine noise from existing and future propulsion concepts.
“The acoustic lab accurately reproduces conditions that apply in flight,” Scheel said. “This allows us to examine new noise reduction measures in the cabin, rendering expensive test flights unnecessary. The acoustic chamber also offers us the opportunity to perform detailed comparisons between simulation models and real-world physics.”
With the expertise gained at the ZAL acoustic lab, Airbus’ interior noise teams are pinpointing where noise enters the cabin and how it is spread and transmitted. They can then explore how background noise can be reduced – for example, by making minor structural modifications, using different types of insulation, or applying new materials such as embedded vibration dampers that absorb noise in a specific frequency range.
“We will significantly shorten the development cycle for new solutions with the help of this demonstrator,” added Martin Wandel, who co-leads the research with Scheel.
The ZAL chamber can accommodate fuselage demonstrators up to eight meters high and 15 meters long (26’ x 49’), including the Airbus A350 XWB and A330 widebody product lines. The initial fuselage mock-up will be investigated before work begins on representative cabin interior components. Tests with passengers also are planned in the acoustic lab’s future.
The acoustic lab is part of a newly-created infrastructure at the ZAL, which opened earlier this year as the technological research and development network for the Hamburg metropolitan region’s civil aviation industry. The ZAL functions as an interface between the aviation sector, academic and research institutions and the City of Hamburg – with Airbus Operations GmbH being one of the three largest shareholders.
For more information, visit the Airbus website.
BEL Engineering’s Six-Axis Machining Centre
BEL Engineering has become the first company in the UK to purchase a Pietro Carnaghi Flexturn 25 multi-tasking machining center, supplied by the Engineering Technology Group. The Flexturn 25 is a six-axis milling and turning machine equipped with a six-pallet FMS system.
The new machine gives BEL the ability to alternate machining heads in a range of configurations, including boring and facing heads, with a tool changer capacity of 252. X- and Y-axis travels are 2,100 mm (83”), Z-axis travel is 1,100 mm (43”) and W-axis travel is 1,000 mm (39”).
BEL offers subcontract machining services, specializing in large-capacity, heavy duty horizontal machining projects in the oil & gas, renewable energy, marine and heavy machinery sectors.
“For the type of machining projects we are expecting to put on the Flexturn, Pietro Carnaghi has a superb pedigree. Further, the detachable nature of the machining heads gives us tremendous flexibility while ensuring we protect unused heads in what is a very unforgiving machining environment,” said Jonathan Lamb, CEO of BEL Engineering.
“The Flexturn will become integral within our large milling and turning Cell and will give us an integrated range of benefits including great capability, larger capacity and extended machining hours for lights out operation,” Lamb added.
Delivery is scheduled for the summer of 2017.
For more information, visit the websites for BEL Engineering and Pietro Carnaghi.
CERN’s Superconducting Coil Furnace
A new furnace arrived at CERN’s Large Magnet Facility last month and is currently being installed and tested.
The furnace completes the equipment required for the production of superconducting coils, which are needed for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) upgrade and future circular colliders.
The new 32-metre-long furnace, called GL010000, will allow the heat treatment of coils with a length up to 11m and can reach temperatures up to 900°C providing a sufficient margin for future challenges.
This treatment involves a two-week long process during which the coils are raised to different temperature plateaus up to 665°C. A special feature of this oven is that it is able to raise the coils to such high temperatures completely uniformly throughout the entire oven, making sure one part doesn’t heat more or less than another.
Superconducting accelerator magnets are key for reaching higher energies and luminosities in particle accelerators.
The HL-LHC upgrade aims for magnetic fields up to 11T for the dipole magnets while the Future Circular Collider study explores using magnets with a field of 16 Tesla, almost double the 8.3 Tesla of the superconducting magnets used in the LHC.
To reach these goals new superconducting materials are needed.
“Nb3Sn has been chosen for the next generation of superconducting magnets,” explained Friedrich Lackner, a project engineer who supervises the coil production for HL-LHC. “The field achieved with this material can reach up to 16T. The production of such coils is complex as we must first wind the coils and then perform the heat treatment that allows the tin and niobium to react and turn into the superconducting Nb3Sn compound.”
Once the material has undergone this heat treatment it becomes very brittle, which is why this process is performed after the winding process — the opposite to magnets in the LHC.
The installation of the new furnace at CERN’s Large Magnet Facility (LMF) will help scientists researching and developing the new materials needed for future colliders to understand the superconductor development based on this Nb3Sn alloy, and will allow CERN to lead the production of superconducting coils and the development of high-field magnets.
For more information, visit the CERN website.
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