In Soviet times, the design of the world's largest supersonic bomber Tu-160 worked several thousand designers for a decade. Today, to ensure the reproduction of the aircraft in a new look, the Tupolev Company is creating the Unified Information Environment (ENI), which provides digital design and production methods.
The use of the EIS will allow digitizing design documentation and launching the production of the Tu-160М2 in “digit”. In total, it is planned to involve about 1,500 specialists in the project. Thanks to the EIS, all work is planned to be completed in about four years.
“The Tu-160М2 differs from its predecessor by a fundamentally new on-board electronics complex and a set of weapons,” the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov said earlier. - The Tu-160 in the M2 version will be a completely new aircraft with new onboard radio-electronic equipment. Its effectiveness will increase in 2,5 times compared with its predecessor. "
The aircraft was manufactured at the Kazan Aviation Plant. S.P. Gorbunova (part of the company "Tupolev") with 1984 year. In 2008, the last Tu-160 for today was transferred to the state customer.
In order to use the latest achievements in the field of digital design, the KLA, together with the Ministry of Defense of Russia and the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, have launched a project to digitize Tu-160 design documentation.
Especially for the Tu-160М2 project, work was done to protect data exchange channels, a single network was set up in centralized corporate applications, the exchange of design and engineering data. There are additional requirements for bandwidth and security of information transmitted in a single environment.
Layout and frame
Two years ago, the KLA and the company Tupolev began the process of digitizing the production of the Tu-160 missile carrier. When carrying out these works, it was decided to use the principle of “distributed design bureau”, when specialists from several design bureaus, sometimes located in different cities of Russia, worked on the drawings of various units and the airframe.
In February, 2017 of the year ended one of the most crucial stages - the digitization of the fuselage frame. Through dedicated channels of communication in a single information space, the designers recreated three-dimensional models of airframe assemblies — a wing, a fuselage, and a tail unit — in a “digit”.
“Most of the work on digitizing the aircraft is completed. In total, in record time, we managed to digitize around 50 000 drawings. There is a large block of works on modeling the airborne equipment of the largest rocket carrier in the world, ”notes Valery Solozobov, deputy general director of Tupolev for design, research and development.
Cloud on the Yauza
The technical support of the aircraft digitization was carried out thanks to the launch of the EIS project. During the first stage of the work, which took place in Moscow, Kazan - the engineering center and at the plant itself, as well as in the branches of Tupolev in Samara and Ulyanovsk, about 740 workstations were additionally equipped - automated workstations. Moreover, most of the involved designers were from the "Tupolev school". “Fresh blood” also appeared in Tupolev - several dozen specialists moved to work in the company from other aviation enterprises. But the new methods of work had to be mastered even by specialists who were well familiar with computers. The design bureaus, which were united by the EIS, designed the units of the future aircraft in one cloud. The data processing center and one of the largest industrial computers are located in Moscow, at the Tupolev company on the Yauza River embankment.
A special moment is the automatic accounting system. A special technique made it possible to track the progress of digitization both at Tupolev itself and with the project partners. When the process of digitizing several thousand parts at a time is carried out, it is impossible to track the progress of programs manually. The system generates reports that allow you to quickly identify and respond to the “bottlenecks” of the project.
All in all, within the framework of the ENI project, more than 15 areas have been identified, automating the work of employees during the design, manufacturing and operation of the aircraft, and around 10 areas providing IT infrastructure upgrades.
As part of the direction of IT infrastructure, it is supposed to use VDI technology for the first time, when each specialist gets access to his personal virtual machine running on the server. All data is stored on the company's file servers and reliably protected from loss in the event of a failure or breakdown of the user's device. The workplace of the designer itself also changes, and in the end, only the monitor for image translation, the mouse and the keyboard remain. This way of organizing work will allow you to evenly distribute the computing power and comply with security measures to protect information in a single environment.
To create an updated Tu-160 in “digital” in May of this year, in the company “Tupolev”, under the project of a unified information environment, a successful demonstration of the layout of the applied systems installed on the new equipment was held.
Medium for large aircraft
The transition to work in the "digital" has significantly accelerated the work on the project.
Thanks to a single information space, which includes distributed virtual design and digital production, the EIS has the ability to support the processes associated with the entire life cycle of the aircraft - design, production and operation.
The designers of the Tupolev after completing the digital design stage in the EIS of the Tu-160 airframe, proceeded to the next stage - the design of aircraft systems. Here the importance of computer technology is even higher.
"Digital" - in the shop
The next stage of implementation of a unified information system is production. Until now, many technological services of the KAZ plant named after Gorbunov are not automated.
Today "Tupolev" equips its branch - Kazan Aviation Plant. S.P. Gorbunova - modern machining centers. To work with them, the transition from “paper” to “number” is necessary.
The company plans to create in the technical bureau and directly in the workshops more than 800 AWP. It is not only the modernization of production. It is necessary to train specialists, military representatives, accustomed to paper drawings, to work in the 3D environment.
The company will have to organize a new infrastructure for the design and production of aircraft in “digital”, taking into account the fact that production is already in progress.