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Shapes Aerospace has had extensive experience in the fabrication and welding of Inconel and other nickel-based alloys including Inconel 625, Inconel 718, A286 stainless steel, Hastelloy and Greek Ascoloy. The majority of this experience has been applied in aircraft and marine turbine power systems, including exhaust systems, directed airflow & ducting, and aircraft noise reduction (hush-kits).
Diverse in-house manufacturing processes and expertise have been used to build these systems including CNC machining, electrical discharge machining (EDM), punching, forming, and TIG, MIG, continuous seam, and spot welding. Key suppliers have been used for deep drawing, spinning and laser fabrication. Recently added in-house capability will be utilized in the future for laser cutting and laser welding.
The company has extensive experience in building hush kits for commercial airliners including the DC-8, B-727, BAC 1-11 and Gulfstream business jets (G-II, G-IIB & G-III). Hush-kits are complicated welded assemblies requiring significant expertise in deep drawing, forging and machining of continuous Inconel rings, machining of complex Inconel parts, several welding technologies and heat-treating nickel alloys.
Shapes Aerospace supports the U.S. Navy Landing Craft production program (LCAC, or Landing Craft Air Cushion) in building the exhaust gas diffuser, exhaust gas collector and exhaust stack for 84 craft. The company also built other systems such as propeller shaft lube oil tanks, propeller FOD screens, lift-fan mechanisms and air conditioning duct systems. We are currently supporting the Navy and Textron Marine Systems for mid-life overhaul of the system and Shapes has directly contributed to the design and prototyping of a second-generation exhaust gas collector, which is currently under field test.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
(B. F. Skinner)
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