S. S. White Technologies is supplying flexible rotary shafts specifically designed to transmit rotary torque for the manual override on the Honeywell Aerospace Starter Air Valve on the CFM LEAP Series of turbofan engines. The CFM LEAP Series turbofan engines power the Airbus A320neo, Boeing B737 MAX and Comac C919 commercial aircraft platforms.
The Air Turbine Starter (ATS) consists of two components, the Starter and the Starter Air Valve. The Starter Air Valve controls air flow from the Engine Bleed, APU or Ground supply to the ATS and has significant built-in operational and protection features. One of the many features incorporates an S. S. White flexible rotary shaft that allows ground crews to manually actuate the Starter Air Valve in case of an operational failure thus enabling the aircraft to still be dispatched avoiding flight delays and cancellations.
S. S. White says their aerospace flexible shaft products are designed to one of the industry’s highest performance criteria by utilizing a unique computer modeling software program developed by S.S. White called PERFLEXION. This program allows the design engineers to more fully model the behavioral characteristics of the wire bundles within the shaft core and arrive at an product that provides maximum bending flexibility and torsion strength while allowing minimal torsion deflection with up to a 30 percent improvement over competitive products.