After its success developing an electrical propulsion system for ships and hybrid-electric systems for trams and trains, Rolls-Royce is now pursuing electrification in aerospace, and has announced its intention to break the electric airspeed record to demonstrate its commitment to electrification. This will be done by a fast, small, all-electric single-seater demonstrator aircraft being built by Rolls-Royce, scheduled to fly for the first time in 2020. This project is in partnership with battery manufacturers, with funding from the UK government. In another collaboration with Airbus and Siemens, Rolls- Royce is producing a hybrid- electric aircraft demonstrator, E-Fan X, which will be on the scale of today’s single-aisle aircraft. The demonstrator will operate both on standard


“This is where we’re going and this is where the laser industry will be coming along with us”


kerosene aircraft fuel and electrical power stored on- board. This will require the integration of a 2MW electric propulsion unit and a 2.5MW power generation system from Rolls-Royce, in addition to a 2MW battery from Airbus and a 2MW motor from Siemens – which will power the electric propulsion unit. ‘This is where we’re going and this is where the laser industry will be coming along with us,’ said Grafton-Reed. ‘Applications such as drilling, welding, cladding and marking – all of those have got to be better by being faster, producing tighter process results and being more efficient.’


While he assured attendees that current laser applications in aerospace are not going to disappear – turbines still need to be optimised further to offer greater efficiency, lower


emissions and lower required maintenance – Grafton-Reed emphasised the growth of electrical systems in aerospace will require new laser processes. These will involve copper welding for battery production, dissimilar materials welding, and the processing of new alloys. Each of these new processes will require further research before they can be made reliable enough for production. Grafton-Reed concluded by highlighting that closed-loop or ‘near-closed’ loop process control will be an absolute necessity for guaranteeing the quality of these processes, when producing electrical systems with ultra-high reliability. ‘I sincerely believe that we can’t just put a robust process in, we’re going to have to monitor it and control it extremely closely. And we have to have a lot more data coming out of the processes in our factories so that we can confirm everything is absolutely on the button.’ Process control will be key


for achieving ‘green button’ processing, which Grafton- Reed described as ‘a machine operator only ever being faced with two choices throughout every step of an application – either yes or no, to either continue processing, or cease processing’.


See you at our booth #4D36 at LASYS in Stuttgart, Germany, June 5 - 7


Compact cutting for de-commissioning Two years ago, at ILAS, Rolls- Royce’s on-wing technology specialist James Kell impressed attendees by introducing a small, flexible, fibre-fed laser probe containing a number of focusing optics and a steerable mirror. The firm developed the device for deploying in aircraft engines, using a snake-like robot to perform blending repairs on turbine blades. The way that laser light could be delivered to such a tight space to carry out a complex application was, to me, nothing short of astounding. At this years’ symposium I


was reminded of Kell’s talk when Dr Simon Kirk, a research fellow at the United Kingdom Atomic


WWW.LASERSYSTEMSEUROPE.COM | @LASERSYSTEMSMAG g SUMMER 2019 LASER SYSTEMS EUROPE 9 3D Scan System for Industrial Laser Cutting


• Designed for high-power CO2 lasers • Perfect cutting results thanks to smallest laser spots • Variable scan field enabled by FLEX option • Light weight mirrors for highest cutting speeds • Compact, sealed housing


More Flexibility for Packaging and Textiles – powerSCAN II


www.scanlab.de


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48