Production
Manufacturing
Welding Technologies
Surface Technologies
Quality Management
AIT
Rapid Prototyping
CMC

Space Propulsion Manufacturing and Production

Manufacturing, welding and surface technologies, quality management, AIT and rapid prototyping.

The Ottobrunn Production Centre has been a European centre of competence for over 40 years in the precision manufacturing of rocket engines, thrust chambers, propellant valves and propulsion systems equipment.

The production centre has produced propulsion systems hardware for all versions of the Ariane launch vehicle family, including the core stage and various upper stage variants of Ariane 5.

The centre also manufactures cryogenic propellant valves, propellant tank domes, complex antenna plates for satellites, antenna reflectors, jet engine casings and a miscellany of aerospace components.

In 2003, a new production centre was purpose built as part of a persistent drive to assure the highest possible quality and consistency of liquid propellant rocket engines and combustion chambers. The 10,000 square metre production centre comprises the following specialist departments:

Manufacturing
Welding technology
Surface technology
Quality Management
Assembly, integration and test
Rapid prototyping

Machining of Vulcain 2 Injector Head   Robot Welding of HM 7B Nozzle Extension   Part of the electroplating facility   Integrated Vulcain 2 Thrust Chamber Assembly

Manufacturing
The mechanical workshop features state of the art robotic, automated and CNC manufacturing facilities. The recent introduction of high performance machining has allowed components for space applications to be processed ten times faster than normal - and to the cost benefit of our customers.

High performance machining is applied to such materials as inconel, magnesium, titanium, high strength aluminium, electroplated nickel, plastics, carbon fibre and C/SiC structures.

The mechanical workshop has a small and large component manufacturing facility. Small component manufacturing specialises in producing small and intricate aerospace components. Large component manufacturing specialises in aerospace components having a diameter greater than 500 mm

Mechanical inspection is performed with automated 3D measuring machines as well as the traditional manual inspection techniques. Inspection records are completely integrated within a software environment.

Welding Technology
Welding specialities include robotic, electron beam and TIG hand welding.

	The robot welder features a laser-led TIG welding head that detects the welding gap and regulates the welding parameters accordingly.
	Electron beam welding is all axes NC programmable and fully compliant to DIN 32505.
	A highly sophisticated TIG welding process has been developed, mainly for rocket engine thrust chambers, using experienced and certified (aircraft welding) staff.

Surface Technology
The surface technology department covers a number of specialist disciplines, including:

	Electroforming, using nickel sulphamate, enables thick coatings of several millimetres to be built-up. Electroforming is used when it would be uneconomic or difficult to achieve complex component geometries using conventional mechanical means.
	Electroforming by pulse plating is a new technique that enables thick metallic layers to be built-up with excellent expansion, strength and ductile properties. This technique is used for our recently developed thrust chambers for Vulcain 2 and Vinci cryogenic rocket engines.
	Electroplating is applied to aerospace components for improving their chemical and physical properties such as wear resistance, corrosion resistance and electrical conductance. The thickness of a standard electroplated coating is approximately 20 µm. Typical electroplated coatings are nickel, gold, silver and chrome.
	Dewaxing is one of our surface technologies used after nickel plating the cooling channels of rocket engine thrust chambers
	We use all of the industrial cleaning techniques, including spray cleaning and ultrasound cleaning for components ranging in size from minute injector elements to completely integrated combustion chambers.

Quality Management
Our quality assurance includes the following main disciplines:

	Quality engineering that oversees and supervises the performance of processes and their ongoing improvement and refinement.
	Material and component part testing to  ensure that any material defects or inconsistencies are discovered as early as possible.
	Mechanical control specialising in the area of 'visible' testing and examination of component part geometries.

Assembly, Integration and Test
Assembly, integration and test provides for:

	Assembly of components in appropriate conditions.
	Dedicated facilities for testing pressure, leakage, flow check, thermal, environmental, etc.
	Test-analysis accompanied with NDI / DI-Tests and FEM on-site.

Rapid prototyping
Rapid prototyping is used for the fast and economic production of demonstration and functional models using Stereo Lithography and Selective Laser Sintering techniques.

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