Sifco ASC (Applied Surface Concepts) (www.sifcoasc.co.uk) has developed a robotic selective plating station for the Gloucester facility of Safran Landing Systems.

The latter has been at the forefront of landing-gear technology for over 80 years, and it manufactures the landing gear for a number of the world’s leading commercial aircraft.

Aerospace operating conditions present continual surface-finishing challenges for manufacturers, and one particular challenge for Safran was a landing-gear bogie beam design with a stop-pad between the bogie beam and vertical part of the component.

This prevents wear as the landing gear is retracted into the fuselage, but there is potential wear at the interface, plus a further risk of atmospheric corrosion.

A design modification was agreed, involving the application of a nickel chrome electrolytic protective treatment.

Sifco ASC has partnered Safran on surface-finishing projects for over 20 years, so Neil Kenyon, process group manager at Safran, approached Sifco ASC to investigate the potential of the Sifco Process — the leading method of electroplating specific areas of components without using an immersion electroplating tank — as a solution in this case.

While manually plating a layer of nickel underneath a layer of chrome on the section of the bogie beam affected by corrosion was possible, Safran’s robust manufacturing-quality standards required the process to be highly traceable and repeatable so the decision was taken to automate the process.

Safran tested the nickel material under simulated take-off and landing conditions. Once it was confirmed that the material was suitable (in early 2014), Sifco ASC began work on designing a robotic system.

The robot plating station is now fully operational at Safran’s facility, and it provides a precise, repeatable and traceable process.

The integrated computer logs all of the relevant information, including the parameters of the job, the batch numbers for the solution, the current densities and the solution levels.

The system is currently processing 30 bogie beams per month, and the team is looking to expand its use into other areas.