Composite Process Development Engineer - Fixed Term Contract

at  GE Aviation

JOB DESCRIPTION SUMMARY

Dowty, a GE Aerospace company is a world leading supplier of propeller systems to the global turboprop aircraft market. To date, Dowty propeller systems have amassed over 200 million blade flying hours, with individual propeller blades achieving more than 50,000 flying hours of operation. Engineering excellence has been at the heart of Dowty since 1937. Today, Dowty’s global team is building on this pedigree to explore a new age of aircraft propulsion that will innovate, inspire, and propel the next generation of flight.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Within an Integrated Project Team, you will support composite process development for an NTI programme to deliver a novel composite rotor structure. You will be working as part of the Materials and Process group, but with heavy interaction with the Design and Manufacturing teams. You will be working on development and delivery of composite rotor hardware for test, with a particular emphasis on hands-on process development and definition.
During the process development you will support the new part and process design, setting up the line to produce test hardware, and then supporting production of the test articles. New process design involves development and demonstration of individual operations of the proposed process, including low maturity composite material and process technologies, as well as providing input on changes to the process that may improve part or process performance. It also includes concurrent engineering, by repeated prototyping of elements of the hardware and provide design for manufacturing feedback during the part design phase.
The successful candidate will support setting up the line by contributing to process specifications and documentation, equipment procurement and commissioning, and tooling system design. They will then support the low rate production of test hardware, both with hands-on support on the line, but also by characterising the parts produced by a range of techniques (metrology, composite testing, NDT) to ensure the process is capable, and design intent is met.

QUALIFICATIONS/REQUIREMENTS

• A relevant Engineering degree – Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering or equivalent

DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Composite Process Development/Manufacturing experience – particularly with RTM and dry fibre preforming
• Demonstrated experience of process improvement
• Material development experience (carbon fabric, resin, adhesive, binder, bond primers)
• Low TRL/MRL technology development experience
• Experience with Aerospace quality systems (in development and/or production) – particularly on rotatives (engines, rotors)
• Six Sigma, Lean or other process control/improvement techniques
• Composite part characterisation (mechanical test, microscopy, volume fraction measurement)
• Composite metrology and NDT
• Composite Design/Design for Manufacture experience
• Tool design – particularly in Catia V5
• Tool procurement
• Tool rapid prototyping (3D printing, simple machining, composite tooling layup)

Please refer the Job description for details