Aircraft are particularly sensitive to fatigue because of their thin, highly stressed structures.
Current manufacturing methods to prevent in-service fatigue damage are both labor and tooling intensive and are not amenable to automation. WTC funded an earlier FTI project wherein StressWave, working with UW researcher Brian Flinn, optimized a new automated process using company-developed equipment that makes the holes more resistant to fatigue. The focus of this 18-month RTD project will be to generate the data needed to commercialize the StressWave process for the full range of metal alloys used in aircraft manufacturing. Mark Kuzyk, of the WSU Physics Dept., will conduct research to reduce the amount of energy required to illuminate a given area, making the company's products more efficient and less expensive to manufacture. The scope of the two-year project includes the development of a prototype and transfer of the manufacturing process to Spectra Lux.