For almost 30 years, Advanced Composite Structures Australia (ACS Australia) has been delivering high-value engineering services to develop unique composites-related product and technology solutions for its customers.
Projects at ACS Australia typically start with concept development and engineering, followed by the manufacture of prototypes to demonstrate and validate the product. Over five years ago, the company expanded into series manufacture and the assembly of low-volume, high-value, composite products, and has made strategic investments into advanced manufacturing equipment including automated machining and additive manufacturing.
Today, ACS Australia stands out from its competitors by providing its customers with a “one-stop-shop” for the development and supply of new composite-related products, providing a fast-track path to market. The talented engineers and technicians at ACS Australia are continuously being challenged by a diverse range of projects where advanced composite materials are being applied. Recently they have manufactured three unique products utilising carbon fibre composites with the support of in-house Industry 4.0-based manufacturing tools.
- Aircraft aerial imaging camera housing
ACS Australia manufactured a carbon fibre composite camera housing for attachment on a light aircraft for in-flight aerial imaging. The camera housing required one front-facing dome port and two downward facing lens ports, allowing for medium-format cameras to be mounted inside with varying angles. The carbon fibre housing was designed, manufactured and assembled at ACS Australia in Port Melbourne.
The assembled structure is stiff and lightweight. Nominally the composite structure is 2kg, enabling the user to manually load and unload from the aircraft wing strut without the need for ground support equipment. Moreover, the modular design permits disassembly of components to individually adjust cameras and electrical equipment connections.
The structure is made with laminated carbon fibre at a nominal thickness of 2mm, with integrated flanges for each subcomponent, to protect joins from dust and water ingress. Additionally, the blackened interior offers reduced internal reflections and dampens light leaks, enhancing imaging quality. A gel coat was used on the exterior for UV protection, while achieving a high-quality surface finish.
- Electromagnetic sensor housings
ACS Australia manufactured a batch of 25 carbon fibre composite housings, to be used as an electromagnetic sensor housing in a mining application. The housings were completed wholly in-house at ACS Australia’s Melbourne facility.
The carbon fibre housings were manufactured via resin infusion in a specifically developed cylindrical tool for batch production. The cylindrical tool was designed in CATIA CAD and manufactured via epoxy resin lay-up of GFRP (glass fibre-reinforced plastic), making a tough durable mould for reuse. To achieve the high-quality surface finish on the final part a twill weave 0/90 carbon fibre fabric was selected, and a clear gel coat was applied for a gloss aesthetic finish. Operational ports for electromagnetic wiring and attachments were machined utilising in-house CNC cutting.
This is a good example of how ACS Australia combines both composite manufacturing capability with advanced Industry 4.0 CNC machine tooling. These capabilities allow an SME like ACS Australia to serve customers in a timely manner with advanced design and manufacturing all in one organisation. Furthermore, this enables higher-tolerance components to be validated, which is critical for precision industry applications as in this case.
- Safety-critical animatronic structure
ACS Australia designed, manufactured and assembled a number of complex geometry, carbon fibre composite animatronic components for Creature Technology Co, one of the world’s leading creators of attractions for large theme parks. The largest component was a moving head section with stringent safety requirements (six times higher than some aerospace applications), while also minimising mass to allow dynamic movement of the structure. In addition to the large head section, ACS Australia manufactured numerous carbon fibre composite sub-components at its Port Melbourne facility to very demanding deadlines, whilst following an ISO 9001 quality system.
ACS Australia’s extensive experience with out-of-autoclave, vacuum-assisted resin infusion enabled the manufacture of high-quality parts. The component and tooling were specifically designed for very high final-assembly geometric tolerances, as the final assembly of the entire structure was carried out off-site.
The project requirements demanded that the component design, manufacture and materials be chosen very carefully for the safety-critical, lightweight structural composite assembly, taking into consideration operational requirements based on kinematic loads and acceleration data supplied by the customer. Moreover, strict safety requirements were necessary as people would be in close proximity to the structure when in operation. As such, structural components were manufactured with multi-axial carbon fibre fabric to minimise weight in construction.
Furthermore, the design of the structure involved extensive use of dynamic finite element analysis (FEA) to optimise the structure, and together with tailored carbon fibre reinforcements this achieved a significantly reduced assembly weight in comparison to the traditional metallic structure.
ACS Australia supports Defence Industry Internship Program
Emma Vecoli and Michael Jurdana joined the ACS Australia team for 12 weeks under the Defence Industry Internship Program (DIIP), working on defence projects while they completed their university education.
The DIIP offers students a paid 12-week internship contributing to an SME engineering project. The internship gives students the opportunity to gain real-life experience on real industry projects, while utilising the latest cutting-edge technologies. ACS Australia continues to invest in Industry 4.0 technology, with a 3D printer and multi-axis CNC machine, which interns have had the opportunity to utilise in their projects.
Emma is completing a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering & Bachelor of Science (Applied Chemistry) at RMIT University. Emma brought strong foundational knowledge of composite materials having previously worked at Carbon Nexus in Geelong. Emma worked on novel thermoplastic adhesive technology used in composite structural bonding.
“I am very excited to have the opportunity to work as part of the ACS Australia team and put my learning into practice whilst working on challenging projects with real-world outcomes,” said Emma
Michael is completing a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at Swinburne University, having finished his final-year capstone project focusing on carbon fibre materials. He has motorsport experience through the FSAE (Formula Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia) program at university. Michael worked on high-temperature composites technology for defence applications and developed a CNC drag-knife tool using 3D printing.
“The ACS Australia team are extremely knowledgeable, while going above and beyond in providing me with support throughout my internship,” said Michael. “It is not often you are given the opportunity to put your theoretical knowledge from prior studies into real-life industry projects. I’ve loved being able to follow projects from the design stage all the way up to manufacture and testing; it’s something that has helped me refine my technical skills and continues to be a highlight of my journey with ACS Australia.”
The team at ACS Australia are continually impressed by the quality of graduate engineers entering the workforce, including their technical capabilities, critical problem-solving skills and strong self-motivation they apply to projects. The DIIP is Australia-wide, employing 70 interns each year across 38 SME engineering companies.
Adrian Chiem, Engineer and IT Coordinator at ACS Australia, is an alumnus of this program, having completed his internship working on defence industry applications of composites-metals bonding. In addition to working on modelling progressive damage on a bonded hybrid composite joint using Cohesive Zone Modelling (CZM), Adrian worked on a variety of composite design, software programming and manufacturing processes for the assembly of a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft. Adrian stayed on with the team and has been leading ACS Australia’s dynamic FEA simulations for composite structures, in particular crash-and-impact analysis.