INNOVATIVE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT, AFFORDABLE COMPOSITE HELICOPTER AIRFRAMECooperative Agreement • September 16th, 2011
Contract Type FiledSeptember 16th, 2011The Rotary Wing Structures Technology Demonstration program was a cooperative agreement, DAAH10-98- 2-0002, between the U. S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate in Fort Eustis, Virginia, and The Boeing Company. The objective of the program was to demonstrate advanced design and analyses tools, and manufacturing processes. The viability of the tools and processes to significantly reduce weight, manufacturing labor hours and engineering development time of composite structures for rotary-wing aircraft were to be demonstrated through the fabrication of a full-scale article. An Integrated Product Team applied Integrated Product and Process Development tools to execute the program. The program selected the 14- foot long center fuselage of the Apache helicopter for demonstration. Boeing successfully designed and manufactured a composite center fuselage that could replace the heavier and more costly aluminum structure of the existing AH-64 Apache helicopter. The new cocured and cobo