Autoclave Control Systems Upgrade

Robins Air Force Base, Georgia

The autoclaves are vital and historical elements at the 574th Composite Repair Flight. The group provides repair and manufacturing support to the C-5, C-17, and C-130 aircraft squadrons at Robins Air Force Base, as well as support to aircraft worldwide through the Defense Logistics Agency.

Once various aircraft parts are bonded inside the shop, they are loaded into the autoclaves for further processing. The autoclave cylinder acts as a pressure vessel to expose parts to elevated pressures and temperatures.

The new design provides Robins Air Force Base with a customized operator interface and machine programming, allowing the operator to configure an autoclave to operate under various atmospheric pressures and temperatures based on a user defined curing profile. Clark Nexsen provided a turnkey project to replace existing, obsolete controls systems and remove all existing piping and instrumentation for two of the autoclaves. The scope included replacing all PLC hardware, HMI software, servers, pressure transducers, and control valves. Additionally, we provided Robins Air Force Base with the ability to store and retrieve the cure data in a custom database.

Key Deliverables

• Controls System with customized operator interface
• Machine programming
• PLC hardware
• HMI software
• Custom database for storage and data retrieval