Aerostructures Australia, a privately owned small to medium enterprise has been working with the ADF for the past decade providing structural integrity engineering services to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Army and Navy.

According to Aerostructures’ Managing Director Rod Locket the company was established to fill a capability gap in Australian industry.

‘In the early 1990s, RAAF recognised that Australian industry, at the time, did not have the requisite skills in Aircraft Structural Integrity (ASI) to meet the needs of the Commonwealth,’ he said.

The company now employs 90 professionals, with many personnel embedded in Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) and Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO).

Personnel embedded within DSTO provide engineering support to research scientists and non-destructive testing for DSTO research projects.

The company’s primary focus is geared towards providing defence with analysis and assessment on aircraft and helicopter structures with emphasis on fleet support, usage monitoring and prolonging service life.

Aerostructures Australia is the only company in Australia with Authorised Engineering Organisation coverage for aircraft structures that extends to all fixed and rotary wing aircraft in the ADF inventory.

Currently, the company’s personnel are providing structural engineering support to DMO systems program offices at ADF bases including Oakey, Nowra, Amberley and Williamtown.

‘Most of our work is done in support of the RAAF in service fleet. We design repairs to aircraft structure, evaluate aircraft fatigue lives and evaluate the impact of different usage patterns on the life of the aircraft. This has involved work on the entire ADF inventory, including F-111, F/A-18 Hornet, C-130, P-3, Caribou and PC-9,’ Mr Locket said.

‘Aircraft usage monitoring and routine fatigue tracking leverages the unique combination of skill sets among Aerostructures staff including engineers, statisticians and software developers.

‘We design structural repairs, when an aircraft cracks, we work out why, what needs to be repaired and how to prevent it from happening again,’ he said.

Aerostructures Australia’s most recent DMO related projects have included assisting Director General of Technical Airworthiness with independent verification and validation of the structural integrity of the Multi Role Tanker Transport Aircraft , Project Wedgetail’s Airborne Early Warning & Control aircraft and supporting DMO with the design of a weapon mount on the Bushmaster vehicles.

Mr Locket said Aerostructures Australia showed its versatility in completing independent verifications of structural integrity by completing a fatigue life evaluation on the mounting of the Bushmaster’s weapon system to verify that it could survive the vibration load of firing the weapon, normal vehicle operation and a collision loading.

The company also provides training services to DMO engineers through a related business, Advanced Technology Training (ATT). ATT offer professional development courses for engineers using world renowned lecturers who travel to Australia specifically to deliver ATT’s courses.

More information about the company and its variety of projects can be found online.

Contacts:
Aerostructures Australia
South Melbourne
+61 03 9694 1060
Website: http://www.aerostructures.com.au

Full Scale Structural Test Rig – B787 Trailing Edge Flap	Finite Element Model of Bushmaster