Autocon Systems Lands Contract for Helicopter Component Press.

In a three-way partnership, Boksburg-based Autocon Systems, together with RTC Control Systems and Denel Aviation have recently completed a helicopter blade press for Italian helicopter manufacturer, Augusta.

As part of the South African Government’s Arms Deal, Augusta was awarded the contract to supply helicopters to this country. Part of the conditions of this contract were that a certain percentage of the components had to be manufactured in South Africa.

“It was not easy to convince the Italians that we had the capabilities to build the press”, explained Leon Barkhuizen of RTC Control Systems, “but in fact we were able to surpass their expectations. We built a world-class press with advanced technology, in under the time allowed for the project”.

The technology used simplified the process to a single step, allowing the blades to be pressed and cured in one process. The press is hydraulically operated and oil is circulated through the top and the bottom using circulating pumps, which are regulated by temperature sensors and pressure transmitters.

“The industry standard is to cool the oil with water”, states Barkhuizen, “Our system uses direct gas heat exchangers and is far superior to the existing technology”.

The whole process is controlled through a Premium PLC TSX 57 using remote IO. The PLC and remote IO are connected to each other via a FIPIO. “By using remote IO we made major savings on cabling”, said Allan Marnitz from Autocon Systems. An Adroit SCADA system was used for the visualisation of the plant, but in addition Autocon Systems developed a Visual Basic application for recipe handling and data logging. The system creates a datalog file per batch which is then processed by the press.

Augusta have been so impressed by the South African engineering and technology used to design and build the helicopter blade press that they are looking to use the same technology for further overseas applications.