Chemical etching plant doubles
Chemical etching plant doubles
Keywords: Bellhouse Aerospace, Etching
Bellhouse Aerospace Group, an operating division of Hampson Industries plc,reports that it has doubled the size of its chemical etching plant in response to a rapid increase in demand for the company's aerostructure manufacturing services.
The company supplies and builds structures and assemblies for a number of customers that include BAE Systems, to which the company supplies fabricated assemblies for Airbus Industrie commercial aircraft, Raytheon, Bombardier,Agusta/GKN Westland Helicopters, Rolls-Royce plc, the Boeing Company of the USA,and the UK Ministry of Defence.
Chemical etching is a process that reduces the skin thickness of selected areas of an aircraft skin structure to reduce weight while retaining the metal's strength. The process is structurally safe, since it does not confer machining stresses to the material during manufacture. The new plant can cater for aircraft skins some 2 metres wide x 5.5 metres long and allows a more environmentally-friendly Type 2 process to be carried out.
The process involves spraying the metal with a safe, low-solvent,highly-aqueous maskant that forms a seal over the skin. A template shows the areas to be thinned and the maskant coating is removed to expose areas that are to be etched. The aircraft skin is then subjected to immersion in a sodium hydroxide solution at an appropriate temperature and strength. Different depths of metal can be etched away according to the time the exposed surfaces are treated.
Doubling the size of the chemical etching facility involved the installation of a number of large immersion tanks measuring 5.5m x 1.5m x 2.5m and increasing the solution handling capability of the plant. It has also demanded the installation of an entirely new detoxification treatment system to enable exhausted acid to be nullified for its safe disposal.
The new installations, which represent an investment of £200,000,reportedly exhibit very low solvent emissions during use and state-of-the-art extraction systems, employing scrubbers and filters, reduce the risk of atmospheric contamination. These measures are said to have made a significant contribution to the company's recent award of the environmental accreditation ISO 14001.
Such has been the requirement for fabricated aircraft parts in recent months that the manpower required to run the enlarged chemical etching plant was predicted to have almost doubled by the end of October 2000 to 27 personnel.
Commenting to AEAT, group managing director Mark Abbey stated:
Our business is growing fast and it is essential that we are able to stay in front of the anticipated requirements of our customers and the competition. We are also constantly seeking ways of improving our production methods and processes to reduce costs and prices to our customers.
The increase in business inevitably has a knock-on effect through all aspects of the company from material purchase to the logistics of delivery. We have an active recruitment department and staffing has increased by 20 per cent in the last year alone. There are now 761 highly skilled people at the Bellhouse Aerospace factories.
Details available from Hampson Industries plc. Tel: +44 (0) 1384 485345; Fax:+44 (0) 1384 485346.
