Metallic R&D Project Manager

Ms da Silva graduated in Civil Engineering at UFMG and joined Embraer as a trainee in 2002. During this traineeship she also obtained an MSc degree in Aeronautical Engineering at ITA, on Solid Mechanics and Aerospace Structures. In 2003 she started working as a stress analysis engineer in the certification phase of E190, E175 and E195; working mainly with fatigue and damage tolerance analysis of primary parts such as the horizontal empennage and fuselage.  In 2006, she joined the Metallic R&D group, which was just starting. There Ms da Silva was involved on new metallic processes and structures development with FMLs and friction stir welding technologies.  She is currently working on a complex metallic demonstrator project at Embraer as a Metallic R&D Project Manager.

Presentation

Manufacturing of a Fiber Metal Laminate Lower Wing Cover Demonstrator 
  
For a long time in the aircraft structures, the primary components were constituted mainly of aluminum alloys. Fiber Metal Laminates (FML) are a new class of material that exhibit excellent damage tolerance (crack growth performance and residual strength), while preserving similarity with aluminum structures. As the average aircraft economic life is over 30 years and there are new perspectives of increasing this time, the inspection and maintenance costs are important design drivers. 

An FML lower wing skin would be a good candidate to improve the performance of the fatigue loading dominated lower wing. For this reason, Embraer is currently investigating the application of FML in this primary structure. 

The development of the Lower Wing Cover Demonstrator was a cooperation with Arconic and consists of AA2524-T3 aluminum sheets alternately bonded to uni-directional fiber glass plies embedded in an adhesive system layers. Feasible manufacturing routes are required in order to apply Fiber Metal Laminates (FML) in  large and complex curved structures such as lower wing panels. The investigation and development of manufacturing processes for FML has been part of the Embraer´s strategy for developing the TRL on this technology for structural applications. This lower wing cover has been assembled into a full semi-wing demonstrator. The semi-wing is being tested at Embraer under service conditions. The lessons learned from this new material application will influence the future developments of optimized FML structures concepts.