The final ALFA Seal Project Review (QRM6) was held at The Bristol & Bath Science Park, Bristol on the 17th November 2022. In attendance were representatives from Airbus, Meggitt Seals, NATEP and of course the project consortium partners Jigsaw Structures & City, University of London.
In terms of hardware, seal demonstrators were exhibited representing the concluding manufacturing options for seal insert & receptacle. Regarding aero performance, City tabled the wind tunnel testing results confirming the seal to be flow friendly at transonic speeds.
Earlier in the month Jigsaw Structures were invited to present the ALFA Seal Project objectives and findings at the Advanced Engineering Show at the NEC Birmingham.
The Consortium is now bidding for follow-on NATEP funding aiming to deliver an innovative wing assembly sealing system employing a high build-rate End Effector to snap-fit our operability-friendly seal. The potential project – BETA Seal – will also seek to quantify experimentally the degradation of the seal’s aerodynamic & sealing performance due to wear, contrasted with an analytical assessment of the impact of ageing traditional sealant, building the case for adoption of a snap-fit sealing system over sealant.
The innovation in the BETA Sealing System project is the novel seal insertion & removal end effector which complements our snap-fit seal (already structurally/aerodynamically proven) and is automation-ready (no such product exists on the market).