Royal NLR developed a Digital Twin ecosystem and implemented this as test case on our Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) manufacturing environment for validating and testing of composites.
The aerospace manufacturing and production industries are increasingly challenged to be more competitive, and do more with less. Higher quality, productivity, efficiency, and sustainability, must be achieved in less time, at lower cost, and with reduced consumption of energy and raw materials. An impactful way of meeting this challenge is to automate processes, taking advantage of new digitization opportunities that make smarter use of available resources.
In the NLR Automated Composites Manufacturing Pilot Plant, composite aircraft components are manufactured using new, highly automated manufacturing techniques. One of the new technologies we are using is the Digital Twin. Digital Twins are a cornerstone of Industry 4.0, able to precisely monitor and predict the impact of every manufacturing step on the quality of a manufactured product, in real-time, while it is actually being made.
NLR developed a Digital Twin for the Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) process and demonstrated it on a composite landing gear component manufactured within the European Clean Sky 2 HECOLAG research project.The Digital Twin provides live feedback to machine operators to indicate what machine settings are currently affecting product quality, and can also be used offline, to analyse production results and explore possible improvements leading to improved efficiency, fewer defects, and less waste.