News Review: Lockheed Martin signs up Ferra | ADM Aug 2010
Gregor Ferguson Sydney
Brisbane-based Ferra Engineering will pioneer a new manufacturing process for titanium components used on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
The company signed a Memorandum of Agreement on 17 June with Lockheed Martin to establish the world’s first facility for direct manufacturing of titanium airframe parts.
Ferra specialises in high-technology, high-speed machining of complex aerospace products and was the first to manufacture a prototype titanium component successfully using this experimental process.
The direct manufacturing technique for titanium was developed by Lockheed Martin and Chicago-based machine tool manufacturer Sciaky Inc under a 10-year research program.
Currently titanium parts are machined from solid forgings: up to 90 per cent of the titanium itself may be discarded during this process, which wears out machine tools and drills extremely quickly.
Direct manufacture begins with a thick sheet of titanium upon which more of the material is deposited in a shape closely matching that of the finished component.
The built-up material has the same engineering qualities as a forging but the amount of machining required to finish the job is reduced markedly, as is the waste, according to Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president for JSF program integration.
The new technique is expected to reduce the cost of producing titanium components by between 30 and 50 per cent, according to Lockheed Martin.
Titanium components are among the most expensive components in the F-35 airframe and a significant reduction in fabrication and machining costs could have a ‘game changing’ effect on the economics of aerospace component manufacture, according to Australian industry sources.
Ferra will build a new titanium machining facility in Brisbane to produce the direct manufactured components, the company’s managing director, Mark Scherrer, told ADM.
A pilot program later this year will lead to formal certification of the process as suitable for aerospace components.
“When the direct manufacturing process has been fully integrated into the new facility we will be producing three titanium parts for the vertical tails [of the F-35A],” he said.
Production of some 700 ship sets of F-35A vertical tails is expected to begin in 2012.
These will be assembled in Australia by another local SME, Marand Precision Engineering, in Melbourne.
Marand will integrate, assemble and test titanium and carbon fibre composite components manufactured by Ferra and other Australian companies under an MoU with Lockheed Martin which was signed late last year.
The tails will then be delivered direct to the F-35 assembly line at Ft Worth.
Ferra already manufactures F-35 weapon adaptor assemblies under a sub-contract from US firm Marvin Engineering.
Sources at Marand, Ferra and Lockheed Martin declined to speculate on the value of this work as no contracts have yet been signed for these components and sub-assemblies, but a local industry source told ADM that the 700 ship sets would be worth “several hundreds of millions of dollars”.