Wing Accelerator Project 2: Wing Upper Cover

In the highly competitive world of commercial air travel, Airlines require the most efficient, low-emissions aircraft to address rising fuel costs and remain profitable to compete with their rivals. To address this demand and support the Industry target of net zero-emissions by 2050, Airbus will launch new narrowbody aircraft, culminating in a zero-emission Aircraft, called ZEROe by 2035, powered by hydrogen.

These aircraft will be designed using the latest technology of equipment and composite structure, much of which is still under development.

Currently Airbus wings are manufactured in the UK. However, this is for metallic wings and low-rate composite wings, which are both very labour intensive. A new production system needs to be developed. To be successful it must encompass the entire supply-chain.

To meet airline demand, the challenge is to develop a production system that can ramp-up production to 60 pairs of wings a month within two years of the aircraft going into service with the airlines. This has never been achieved in the aerospace industry. To avoid delays, this development needs to be undertaken before full production can be launched.

Working with UK companies and Universities, Airbus in the UK has launched a portfolio of ten funded projects called Wing-Accelerator to undertake this out-of-cycle development, which will focus specifically on high-rate manufacture of composite wings. It will develop the automation, digitalisation, logistics and connected industrial network required.

Project 2 will develop the technology to enable high-rate production of the Wing Upper Cover in the UK. Today on Airbus widebody aircraft, state-of-the-art production can manufacture 11 composite cover sets a month. These are produced in Germany. Therefore rate 60 will be a World's first. The aim of Project 2 is to develop a covers production line that can be installed at Airbus's Broughton Plant, Wales and secure manufacture of the upper covers for the new, sustainable aircraft in the UK. This will create and safeguard 2139 jobs at Airbus and many times more in UK supply-chain, boosting these companies' revenues

Airbus is working in partnership with the National Composite Centre, part of the UK's Catapult Network. The NCC is the UK's Centre of Excellence for Composites Research and Development. It is recognised as a world leader in composite technology, accelerating the development and uptake of digital technologies for sustainable composites and growing the market for composites.

Partners: Airbus, NCC