Accelerated Cure for Manufacturing & Sustainment

As production of the F-35 Lightning II continues, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics (LM-Aero) seeks to improve manufacturing processes. The Wing-to-Body (WTB) fairing has a complex shape and unique design for each F-35 Lightning II variant. The part installation is extensive and a major time constraint for wing structures production due to the required material cure times. The WTB curing process accounts for a quarter, and in some cases more, of the total wing structure assembly time. During cure, no other tasks are completed. The objective of this effort is to develop and implement an accelerated cure method to significantly reduce the span time for WTB fairing installation on the F-35 Lightning II.

The expected benefits of this project include total potential cost savings of over $11.0M for the life of the program. The Composites Manufacturing Technology Center (CMTC) project will develop a method to accelerate cure times of the WTB fairing on the F-35 Lightning II program, resulting in reduced manufacturing time and increased throughput.

Upon successful completion of this project, LM-Aero anticipates implementing the solutions developed from this project in FY2027 and continuing to use through the life of the F-35 Lightning II program.

*Prepared under ONR Contract N00014-21-D-7001 as part of the Navy ManTech Program.

*DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release: distribution unlimited. DCN# 2024-11-6-309; Approval Date: 11/14/2024