 |
| April 2010
Welcome to The CTMA Connector, a monthly newsletter designed to provide news and ideas about the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) program. The CTMA program is a joint Department of Defense/National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (DoD/NCMS) effort promoting collaborative technology development between industry and the DoD maintenance and repair facilities. This newsletter highlights ongoing projects, serves as a forum for promoting new project ideas, and provides other news of interest to the program. Our goal is to stimulate your participation and solicit your input. Feel free to submit items for the newsletter as well as any suggestions to make it more useful. More information about the program can be found at http://ctma.ncms.org/. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the CTMA Connector, send a message to listserv@listserv.ncms.org with “subscribe CTMANewsletter” or “unsubscribe CTMANewsletter” in the message body. We welcome the following company into NCMS: Messier-Dowty, Inc. (www.messier-dowty.com) Messier-Dowty is a designer and manufacturer of landing gear systems and components for commercial, regional and business aircraft applications as well as landing gear assemblies for military aircraft applications. They also provide repair/overhaul and support for landing gear systems. NCMS Members – Join us at the Next Technology Showcase: Fleet Readiness Center East (Cherry Point, NC): 28-29 April This is an exclusive opportunity for NCMS members to display technologies for managers, engineers, and artisans at the Fleet Readiness Center East Maintenance Center in Cherry Point, North Carolina. The first day of the event will be for technology displays followed by a day of follow-up meetings with FRC personnel on potential applications. FRC East is currently interested in the following technologies:
Registration for this NCMS networking event is at https://www.ncms.org/SSL/2010FRCeast/registration.htm. The NCMS coordinator for the Showcase is Debbie Lilu, debral@ncms.org, 734-995-7038. MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Technology Showcase, Marine Corps Maintenance Center, Albany, GA on 8-9 June 2010. Call for Project Ideas The AMRDEC Engineering Directorate Manufacturing Science and Technology (MST) Division and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) have announced their FY10 Project Call. The NCDMM website (http://www.ncdmm.org/ncdmm_about_project_call.cfm) has additional information. This year’s project call is encouraging traditional manufacturing and machining projects as well as projects dealing with advanced materials process development for application to DoD weapon system development, production and sustainment efforts. Projects are targeted at $50-100K with period of performance of 1 year or less. Project submission date is May 21 to NCDMM. The NCDMM contact is Shawn Nesmith, shawn.nesmith@ncdmm.org, (724) 539-4772. Recently Completed CTMA Project: OptiCAM DoD Participants: Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC-ALC); Fleet Readiness Center East (FRC-E); Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS); Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (PHNS); Portsmouth Navy Shipyard (PNS); Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNS); Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD); U.S. Coast Guard Aircraft Repair & Supply Center; NAVAIR Pax River Many current weapons systems are held in service beyond their originally intended lifetime. As these systems age, parts fail or wear to the point of rendering the system not mission capable. Depots, as the source of last resort, often find themselves needing to make replacements. All too often the technical data for a needed part is either missing or incomplete. For those cases, the depot must reverse engineer the part, constructing a Technical Data Package (TDP) sufficient to manufacture the part. Reverse engineering includes metrology to determine geometry and recovering manufacturing information on material properties, surface finish and so forth plus business information such as original equipment manufacturer (OEM) name, part number, etc. When the Optical Generation of 3D Models for Computer-Aided Manufacturing (OptiCAM) project began in mid-2003, the principal 3D scanning technologies were manual measurements, laser scanning, and coordinate measuring machine (CMM) data with new technologies such as laser interferometry coming on but not yet ready for prime time. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for scanning needs. Selection of scanning technology depends on the size and reflectivity of the object to be scanned, scanning accuracy required, and the ultimate application of scan data. The greatest need at project launch was for a portable, rugged, low-cost accurate scanner that could handle parts of a size fitting in a one meter cube, and that was established as a project goal. The project met or exceeded all goals. Goal 1 Portable, rugged and low cost but accurate scanner. Spatial Integrated Systems (SIS), Inc.s prototype VZX scanner uses high-resolution digital video imaging with a parallax algorithm for calculating range. The scanner met or exceeded every design goal including:
Goal 2 Easy transformation of Cloud of Points to 3D solid model. There were two aspects to this goal with the first being transformation from raw range data points to a 3D surface model and from there to a 3D solid model. Producing a full 3D scan requires capturing data from at least six views. Most systems require the use of stick-on targets and human intervention for accurate alignment (registration) of the views, but OptiCAM detects part features (edges, corners, etc.) and uses that information to perform registration without human intervention in most cases. Imageware software converts the registered cloud of points to a surface model. The surface model can be delivered as is to a variety of solid free form manufacturing machines to make a prototype part for function and fit tests. An experienced 3D modeler can relatively quickly transform the surface model to a solid by selecting features and joining them. Goal 3 Development of a complete Reverse Engineering environment. SIS, Inc. has launched a reverse engineering service accessible via the Internet at http://www.nc-aa.com/sites/osandbox/default.aspx. The site is a portal supporting secure file management and access to web services. Siemens PLM Softwares Teamcenter provides the portal software. In addition, all participating depots are to receive at their option a full suite of the Teamcenter software used by the project. The technology is now available commercially, and is well positioned to save the Department of Defense (DoD) approximately $500K annually in reverse engineering cost reduction. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) in a July 2007 report summarized benefits that could be achieved by adding 3D data to the TDP of active legacy parts defined only by 2D data. The study found that for active complex legacy parts where OptiCAM is most ideally suited to economic development of 3D models, the potential annual savings of doing so would be $10,634,537. DLA also found and quantified indirect benefits of such a program: · 47% increased likelihood of receiving responses to Request for Quotation (RFQ) More competition leads to lower prices to DLA · 25% reduction in scrap and rework Lower manufacturing costs lead to lower prices to DLA · 83% increase in accurate costs estimates Reduced risk factor included in costs leads to lower prices to DLA · 66% increase in assurance that the data is complete and accurate Reduced risk factor included in costs leads to lower prices to DLA · 83% reduction in DLA technical support Less DLA/time/resources/cost required and shorter lead times · Electronic data is reuseable for engineering changes/future production Less engineering, less manufacturing costs lead to lower prices to DLA · 92% higher degree of accuracy for the production data package and production planning Reduces manufacturing time/costs, leads to lower prices to DLA. The NCMS contact is Tony Haynes, tonyh@ncms.org, 734-995-4930. 2010 CTMA Symposium “Sustaining Technology Through the 21st Century” The 11th Annual CTMA Working Symposium was held 22-24 March at Quantico. The Symposium included briefs from each of the services on their process for determining maintenance requirements, as well as project briefs from DoD sponsored programs involving sustainment. Officials from each of the services discussed their maintenance technology requirements and their approach to new technologies. In addition, project reviews for CTMA projects as well as projects from selected other DoD-sponsored programs highlighted new technologies targeted for implementation in the maintenance community. Presentations will be made available to non-participants in July. We would like to also thank the following companies for their sponsorship of the Symposium: We appreciate your feedback. Please contact Chuck Ryan with suggestions or input on other topics that would be of interest to you in this newsletter. The CTMA Program is sponsored by the Department of Defense; the content of this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the government; no official endorsement should be inferred. |
| © 2010 |
