AFP Flexbeam Fabrication Development

CH-53K tail rotor blade flexbeams are expensive to manufacture and are predominately built using a manual lay-up process.  Each flexbeam consists of several hundred individual plies that are manually laid up.  Current process inefficiencies include significant labor for manual debulking, raw material waste, ply kitting / interim kit storage and transfer, and manual layup.  The purpose of this Composites Manufacturing Technology Center (CMTC) project was to develop, build, and validate a fully automated manufacturing cell to cut, laminate, and debulk the plies necessary to layup a complete flexbeam.

The anticipated labor cost savings of an automated fabrication approach for the tail rotor flexbeam as opposed to the current hand layup process are approximately $78.3M over 155 aircraft and 2,352 spares.

Contingent upon successful installation and validation of the flexbeam manufacturing cell, Sikorsky and the CH-53K program will productionize this process. This will include limited fatigue testing, teardown, and first article inspection. Automated production is targeted for insertion in 1Q FY2025. Sikorsky worked with PMA-261 through the Project Cost and Affordability Tracker (PCAT) process to secure the funding required to develop the full-scale, production-ready, automated flexbeam manufacturing cell that was proposed in the project plan. Follow-on funding for the validation testing noted above has been coordinated with PMA-261 through the PCAT process as well.

In addition, Sikorsky worked internally to ensure adequate facilities were planned for and funded appropriately to productionize the automated flexbeam manufacturing cell. Items considered included clean-room availability and ensuring that suitable facility requirements are met and proper utilities are in place for the manufacturing cell. Upon successful demonstration of the technology and once the business case is verified, Sikorsky will submit the project into its normal approval cycles required for typical technology insertion on CH-53K.

*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