As air is drawn into the fan system of a gas turbine engine, leakages across the tip of the fan blade must be minimised and the blades must not bind against the inner housing of the nacelle. A composite fan-track liner is precision engineered, machined and fitted to the fan system.

Machining of the fan-tack liners was previously time-consuming, technically difficult and variable. MetLase was asked to create a mechanised fixture that would guide a cutter to shape these liners with the required level of precision and minimum variability.

Using the precision laser cutter and patented joining technologies, MetLase engineers were able to design and build a fixture which guided a cutting tool to profile the composite liners with precision tolerance, prior to assembly into the engine.

The fixture enables a significant reduction in the time and skill required to dress the liners; operation time was reduced by 94%, while precision increased. Furthermore, safety and environment are improved: dust can be much better controlled, and the operator is exposed for far less time. These fixtures were produced to cover operational service centres all over the world, with accuracy repeatable to well within aerospace standards.

Requirement: To reduce time and skill required to dress replacement liner panels.

Time Saving: Operation time reduced by 94%.

Global Process: Fixtures produced to cover all major service centres across the world, all repeatable to aerospace standards