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COLUMNS FEATURES
2 Table of Contents 6 Mission critical: An additive manufacturing
4 From the Editors
breakthrough in commercial aviation
The GE9X is the first aircraft engine with significant additive content.
66 New Products By Brent Donaldson

14 Plant tour: STELIA Aerospace

Supplier of Airbus fuselage sections pushes boundaries.
By Ginger Gardiner

20 Large, high-volume, infused composite

structures on the aerospace horizon
Infused carbon fiber composite structures built at needed rates for
6 next-generation aircraft are a daunting — but feasible — prospect.
By Jeff Sloan

30 Tackling the aerospace supplier’s

dilemma: Scalability
Trinity Precision has learned that refining the indirect and unseen aspects
of its operations can be just as valuable as automation and robotics.
By Brent Donaldson

14
40 Thermoplastic composites: Poised to step
forward
The role of thermoplastic materials and processes evolves for next-gen aircraft.
By Scott Francis

48 HP-RTM for serial production of cost-

effective CFRP aerostructures
Automotive processes and tooling merge with aerospace quality.
20 By Ginger Gardiner

56 Spirit AeroSystems invests in qualification

program with Toray prepreg
A supplier developing its own allowables sets an important precedent.
By Jeff Sloan

58 Fiber sizing, tow spreading and the

30 quest for encapsulation
Fiber sizing will be increasingly important in optimizing fiber performance.
By Jeff Sloan

» ON THE COVER
60 Automation, in-situ inspection a necessity
A 3D-printed midframe component for the
GE Catalyst advanced turboprop engine
for next-gen aerospace
(main photo). Underneath, left to right: Inline inspection technologies continue to evolve for speed and accuracy.
HP-RTM tooling for an A350 door frame, an By Scott Francis
infused A220 wing structure and a thermo-
plastic composite fuselage panel. 62 Big additive machines tackle large molds
Sources | GE Aviation (main photo); left to right: Alpex Large-format AM systems are poised to make production-ready molds.
Technologies, Teijin, Scott Francis
By Jeff Sloan

2 JUNE 2019
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From the Editors
If the commercial aviation
industry effectively doubles in the
next 20 years, as projected by the
two largest aerospace manufac-
turing companies in the world,
how can aerospace manufacturers
and suppliers possibly keep up?
The prediction, made by both Boeing and Airbus,
is that the in-service fleet of passenger and freight
aircraft will increase from roughly 21,000 today
to more than 40,000 by the year 2037, largely to
accommodate the expected surge of international
travelers from emerging economies. Meeting
that demand will require new technologies and
unprecedented manufacturing rates. What does
that look like?
Read on.
The pages of this publication show more than
just a snapshot of aerospace manufacturing as it
exists today. Instead, these stories reveal technolo-
gies, processes and materials that are poised to
accelerate aerospace manufacturing throughput
and increase scalability for industry suppliers in the
coming years.
Additive manufacturing is fulfilling its promise
in the aerospace industry more than any other, as
evidenced by more than 300 additively produced
parts that help compose the new GE9X engine. On
page 6, you’ll learn how GE Aviation has helped
create this blueprint for industrialized next-gener-
ation aerospace through additive manufacturing.
And on page 30, you’ll learn how small-and mid-
sized aerospace suppliers can systemize operations
for automated and complex machining processes,
rather than hiring new employees among the
shrinking supply of skilled manufacturing workers.
Together, these and other stories you’ll find form
a navigation tool for next-generation aerospace
manufacturing. They also provide clues as to how
the commercial aviation industry plans to greet the
coming wave of travelers.
-Brent Donaldson, Senior Editor, Modern
Machine Shop and Additive Manufacturing
4 JUNE 2019
The global commercial aero-
space industry is at a unique
time. Three of the most recently
developed and most advanced
aircraft in the world — the
Boeing 777X and 787 and the
Airbus A350 — are all in produc-
tion, with the latter two in service. All use
advanced materials in general, and composites in
particular, in unprecedented quantities.
As we look to the next decade, the aerospace
industry faces myriad questions about aircraft
development, design, production and materials
use that could substantially shape and reshape
the supply chain landscape for many, many years.
On the aircraft development front, Boeing is
facing the prospect of building the New Midsize
Airplane (NMA), which could be officially
announced any day. On top of that, the company
is coping with the aftermath of the 737 MAX
crashes and the difficulty those have posed to the
supply chain. Is it possible that Boeing will use
this opportunity to implement a plan to develop a
plane to replace the 737?
Airbus, on the other hand, is watching Boeing
and likely will have aircraft announcements of its
own, depending on what its American competitor
does. Among these is possibly a plan to replace
the A320 single-aisle jet, Airbus’ most profitable
and best-selling aircraft.
The cascading effects of these decisions —
whatever they are — will be profound. Ques-
tions will abound regarding material use in these
aircraft, which will lead naturally to decisions
about manufacturing processes. Composites,
additive manufacturing and advanced metals all
will have a role to play.
This publication is designed to provide aero-
space OEMs and suppliers a glimpse of the mate-
rials and processes that will be on the table as
next-generation aircraft are developed, and we
hope can be a guide to the decisions that are yet
to be made.
-Jeff Sloan, Editor-in-Chief, CompositesWorld
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Mission critical: An additive

manufacturing breakthrough in
commercial aviation

The GE9X is the first commercial aircraft engine to reach

production with significant additive content. The story of
GE’s accomplishment and why it matters.

By Brent Donaldson / Senior Editor

» At last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the CEO of China’s
largest online travel service predicted that the number of Chinese passport holders
could nearly double in the next 24 months. If that sounds impossible, consider that less
than 10 percent of Chinese citizens own a passport today. Then consider that from 2000
to 2017, the number of Chinese residents trav-
eling outside of mainland China skyrocketed
from 10.5 million to 145 million — an increase GE9X test
of nearly 1,400 percent — according to the The GE9X on a test platform at GE
China Outbound Tourism Research Institute. Aviation’s testing facility in Peebles, Ohio,
The shockwaves of increased outbound U.S. The GE9X is a massive high-bypass
travel from emerging markets such as China, turbofan that boasts 304 additively
manufactured parts spanning seven
not to mention India and the Middle East, are
components. The largest, most fuel-
radiating across industries. But in many ways, efficient engine that GE has ever produced
this projected surge impacts one industry is on track to gain final FAA certification
above all: commercial aviation. this year. Source | GE Aviation

6 JUNE 2019

3D-printed LPT blades
Stage 5 and 6 low-pressure turbine (LPT) blades
3D-printed from titanium aluminide (TiAl) for the GE9X
engine. Of the components and parts being additively
manufactured for the GE9X, all except the LPT blades
and the heat exchanger are cobalt chromium alloy
parts printed via direct metal laser melting on Concept
Laser M2 machines. The TiAl blades are being printed
at Avio Aero’s 3D-printing factory in Cameri, Italy, on
Arcam A2x printers via electron beam melting. TiAl
presents vastly a superior strength-to-weight ratio
than nickel alloys traditionally used for these parts.
Source | GE Aviation
Boeing and Airbus, respectively the first and
second largest aerospace manufacturing compa-
nies in the world, each project that the in-service
fleet of passenger and freight aircraft will double
over the next 20 years to roughly 40,000. Meeting
this demand will require unprecedented manufac-
turing rates enabled by new technologies, materials
and processes. As one leading aerospace technology
development director recently said, status quo
production methods would require simply doubling
the number of factories in existence today. If that
scenario comes to pass, the skilled labor shortage
Additive manufacturing
alone will ensure that production takes place largely
outside of the United States or Europe.
Yet, one blueprint for industrialized next-generation
aerospace manufacturing may already exist. Boeing’s
new 777X twin-engine jet will be powered by the GE9X,
a massive high-bypass turbofan engine that boasts 304
additively manufactured parts integrated into seven
multi-part structures. General Electric (GE) Aviation
(Evendale, Ohio, U.S.) is currently printing these parts
at its manufacturing plants in Auburn, Ala., U.S., and
Cameri, Italy, while the largest, most fuel-efficient
engine the company has ever produced is on track to
gain final Federal Aviation Administra-
tion (FAA) certification this year.
That achievement would be the
result of systematic changes to produc-
tion methods and material selection
across GE Aviation’s supply chain.
According to Lara Liou, materials engi-
neering leader at GE Aviation, the GE9X
represents the first time the company
has placed multiple additive manufac-
turing (AM) materials and modalities
into production toward a single aviation
GE9X engine
Front view of the GE9X engine, which offers
a blueprint for industrialized next-generation
aerospace manufacturing. Boeing’s new 777X
twin-engine jet will be powered by this massive
high-bypass turbofan. GE Aviation is currently
printing the additively printed parts for the
engine at its manufacturing plants in Auburn,
Ala., U.S., and Cameri, Italy. Source | GE Aviation
7
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

GE catalyst midframe
A 3D-printed midframe component for the GE
Catalyst advanced turboprop engine. According
to GE Aviation, the GE Catalyst is “the first clean-
sheet engine in more than 30 years for the turbo-
prop segment,” and represents the promise that
GE Aviation and GE Additive see in 3D-printing
technologies. Through advanced manufacturing
and 3D printing, the companies reduced 855 parts
to 12 components for the engine. Source | GE Aviation

application. In doing so, GE Aviation

believes it has created a first-of-its-kind
industrialized aerospace supply chain
for additive manufacturing. Examining
that process could provide clues as to
how the commercial aviation industry
plans to greet the coming wave of
travelers.

A logistical leap
While news about additive manufac-
turing’s contributions to the GE9X has been widely
reported, GE Aviation has (until now) never identified
the seven additively manufactured components in the
engine.
LEAP fuel nozzle
The GE9X’s fuel nozzle is largely identical to
that of the LEAP engine, pictured here. The
LEAP fuel nozzle is often assumed to be the
first 3D-printed part that GE Aviation
identified and produced for additive
manufacturing (AM). But the company first
printed its T25 sensor housing units for
more than 400 GE90 engines well before it
printed its first LEAP fuel nozzle tips. When
initial work on the GE9X began around 2013,
it was no surprise that the company decided
to continue printing these two parts.
Source | GE Aviation
They are:
• Fuel nozzle tip
• T25 sensor housing
• Heat exchanger
• Inducer
• Stage 5 low pressure turbine (LPT) blades
• Stage 6 LPT blades
• Combustor mixer
The internal process of identifying GE9X components
suitable for additive manufacturing was necessarily
complex. The company was able to leverage and build
upon earlier successes printing intricate assemblies
and complex geometries, namely the 3D-printed fuel
nozzle for the LEAP engine — a part that’s still often
pointed to as a prime example of industrial additive
manufacturing’s promise.
The GE9X’s fuel nozzle is largely identical to that
of the LEAP engine, which is often assumed to be the
first 3D-printed part that GE Aviation identified and
produced for additive manufacturing. However, the
company first printed its T25 sensor housing units for
more than 400 GE90 engines well before it printed
its first LEAP fuel nozzle tips. When the first sensor
appeared on a GE90-94B jet engine in 2015, it became
the first additively manufactured aircraft engine part
to receive FAA certification. All of which is to say that
when initial work on the GE9X began around 2013, it
was no surprise that the company decided to continue

8 JUNE 2019
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

GE Aviation and ATC team

Pictured at GE’s Additive Technology Center (ATC), from left to right: Antroine Townes, ATC site leader; Lara
Liou, GE Aviation materials engineering leader; Ryan Chapin, GE Aviation design engineering leader; and
Eric Gatlin, general manager for aviation additive integrated product team at the ATC. Photo | Jeff Norgord

printing fuel nozzle tips and sensor housing units.
The GE9X heat exchangers and inducers are a
different story. GE Aviation’s heat exchangers tradi-
tionally have been composed of dozens of thin metal
pipes. The 3D-printed heat exchanger for the GE9X
has a completely different profile, one that includes
optimized channels and complex internal geometries
that take full advantage of AM’s design freedoms.
The inducer was designed to improve engine dura-
bility, combining the design freedom of additive to
meet the challenging technical requirements of GE
Aviation customer needs worldwide. Ryan Chapin,
design engineering leader at GE Aviation, says that
the inducer represents the company’s continuous
evolution from engine to engine: “One of the beautiful
aspects of GE Aviation is that we can look at the GE90
on the Boeing 777 or the GEnx on the 787 Dreamliner,
and learn from them to incorporate the new changes
into the next engine so it continually gets better and
better.” The GE9X inducer represents another example
in which design engineers combined multiple compo-
nent features into a single unit through additive
manufacturing.
While the heat exchanger and inducer showcase
significant efforts to advance that continuum for GE
Aviation, the decision to print low-pressure turbine
blades for the GE9X was a logistical leap of faith for
the company. But it was a leap the company had been
preparing for since 2013, the year it purchased a former
supplier based in the rolling hills of northern Italy.
The ramp to production
Of the seven components and 304 parts being addi-
tively manufactured for the GE9X, all except the LPT
blades and the heat exchanger are cobalt chromium
alloy parts printed via direct metal laser melting
(DMLM) on Concept Laser (Grapevine, Texas, U.S.)
M2 machines. GE purchased the majority stakes in
Concept Laser in 2016 — the same year it purchased
Arcam AB and launched GE Additive. 2016 was also
the same year that GE overhauled a former Dell
Computers distribution warehouse in Cincinnati,
Ohio, and turned it into a massive 3D printing facility
and development center.
Eric Gatlin is general manager for the aviation
additive integrated product team at the Additive

10 JUNE 2019
 AREOSPACE SUPPLEMENT
GE9X test flight
Notice the difference in size between the GE9X (right)
and the CF6 engine on the opposite wing. According to
Lara Liou, materials engineering leader at GE Aviation, the
GE9X represents the first time the company has placed
multiple additive manufacturing materials and modalities
into production toward a single aviation application.
Source | GE Aviation
Technology Center (ATC), the 125,000-square-foot
epicenter of development for GE Aviation. The staff of
300 at the ATC is composed of co-located employees
of GE Aviation and GE Additive who work across fields
spanning material science, machine engineering,
design, programming and logistics.
During my recent visit to the ATC, Gatlin’s team
was transitioning the production of GE9X parts to the
Auburn plant where the current LEAP fuel nozzle tips
are being printed at a rate of 800 per week. “Looking
at the scale of our additive manufacturing just in the
industry right now, that’s not insignificant volume,”
Gatlin says. “That’s fully industrialized, high-volume
manufacturing that will likely double this year.”
Back at the ATC in Cincinnati, Concept Laser
machines are prepped and tested before being shipped
to production facilities in Auburn and elsewhere, a task
that leaves the number of machines onsite always in
flux. But of the 80-to-100 metal 3D printers housed at
the ATC on any given day, 18 Concept Laser machines
have been dedicated for the past several months to the
production of cobalt chromium (CoCr) parts, and F357
aluminum for the heat exchangers. Antroine Townes
is the ATC site leader responsible for overseeing the
transition from Cincinnati to Auburn. “It’s a significant
ramp into production,” he says, “steeper than that of
the LEAP fuel tip. The ramp we saw in the LEAP engine
Additive manufacturing
sales was pretty significant for our supply chain. But the
incline we’re expecting for the GE9X from 2019 to 2020 is
even steeper, which is why we’re building right now for
2020 demand.”
The road to additive production for the LPT blades
was steeper still. The titanium aluminide (TiAl)
blades are being printed at Avio Aero’s 3D-printing
factory in Cameri, Italy. The modern facility houses 30
large, black Arcam A2x printers, each outfitted with a
3-kilowatt electron beam that can be used to produce
up to six of the 15.75-inch blades at once. By the end of
the year, there will be 50 machines there largely dedi-
cated to LPT blade production.
Titanium aluminide provides a vastly superior
strength-to-weight ratio than nickel alloys tradition-
ally used for these parts. But that advantage comes at a
price. Just as electron beam melting is a technologically
demanding process, TiAl is a notoriously fussy material.
Previously, GE Aviation had cast the TiAl blades in a
foundry and then machined them to a final finish — a
procedure that involved long lead times to create tooling
and to machine the overly large castings. So, across the
Atlantic Ocean, GE Aviation turned to Avio Aero’s exten-
sive experience printing TiAl powder. The company
had experimented with several parameters of the EBM
process to customize it for the material, including
increasing layer thickness and speed, and preheating the
11
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
TiAl powder to avoid creating residual stress.
The resulting 3D-printed LPT blades are in many
ways the culmination of GE’s investment in Avio Aero
in 2013. One of the factors in favor of purchasing Avio
was the company’s experience printing TiAl, which,
in turn, Avio had become interested in after learning
that GE Aviation was using it for the GE90 blades. The
reason for both companies’ initial interest in the printed
material is clear: The new TiAl
LPT blades are a driving force
behind the 10-percent gain The 3D-printed LPT blades
in fuel efficiency the GE9X are in many ways the
will boast. Considering that
culmination of GE’s
fuel accounts for nearly
25 percent of an aircraft’s
investment in Avio Aero.
operating costs, that’s an
important number.
Gatlin also says that
printing the blades represents a significant cost savings
on the supply chain side of the business. “Raw material
procurement capacity in the forging and casting space
is constrained globally across many industries,” he
says. “Not having to release tooling steel a year and a
half or two years in advance of when you need the part
is significant. Our ability to impact that and disrupt
it is really where we see the most benefit of additive
manufacturing.”
Additive is no different
While researching commercial jet engine production,
eventually you will run across video footage of a dead
fowl being shot from a canon into a rotating fan blade.
One example of that footage is of a test that took place
at the GE
Aviation facility used at the high-volume facility.
Read this article online | in Peebles,
short.compositesworld.com/AM_GE9X Ohio, where,
reportedly, a
member of the
FAA was lucky enough to choose the goose. Which is
to say that the certification program for the GE9X (and
all commercial aircraft engines) is something done in
conjunction with, rather than being presented to, the
FAA. And that’s crucial to the FAA’s ability to adapt its
certification process to the rapid advance of additive
manufacturing.
Materials engineering leader Lara Liou points out
that the GE9X represents the first time GE Aviation has
put multiple materials into additive production for an
aviation application. “So now we’re developing a true
12 JUNE 2019
industrialized base and creating standards that already
exist in other industries. Standards that help us to control
production across multiple production sites; that help us
to control across multiple raw materials suppliers; that
help us to control across multiple materials and modali-
ties — in other words, a foundation for a truly industrial-
ized supply chain for additive manufacturing,” Liou says.
Creating those standards will be key for the FAA,
which has maintained a
presence in Cincinnati to
learn right alongside the
engineers at the ATC. “To
me it’s in parallel to other
new materials and manufac-
turing technologies that we’ve
introduced in the past,” Liou
says. “Look at where we were in
the early 1990s with polymer matrix
composites and what we were doing to introduce fan
blades and platforms. Nobody else was flying carbon
[fiber]-reinforced materials in their engines at that time.
We created that standard and worked with the FAA to
ensure that all the proper controls were in place. So to
me, we’re really building off of a legacy of experience of
introducing new materials and manufacturing methods.
And additive is no different.”
As production begins for the printed GE9X compo-
nents at the Auburn plant, the processes used to create
those parts have long been locked down. What GE
Aviation calls special process substantiation includes
the commissioning of new machines, acceptance
testing and calibration, and the creation and evaluation
of the first material test bars. Every machine that hits
the ATC floor goes through the same process that will be
“And it’s no different,” Liou says: “I mean that process
is no different than many of our other manufacturing
processes where we know that any change could impact
the final mechanical property outcomes of the part. We’ve
put those processes through certification here, but I think
the story is still to come on the GE9X. The real impact is
going to be when our customers are flying, and they feel
the impact of this additive manufacturing technology.”
Brent Donaldson is senior editor for Modern
Machine Shop and Additive Manufactur-
ing Magazine, and writes about advanced
manufacturing and industrial 3D printing.
bdonaldson@mmsonline.com
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 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Plant Tour: STELIA Aerospace,
Méaulte, France
Supplier of Airbus
fuselage sections pushes
boundaries of hybrid
aerostructures production,
assembly and thermoplas-
tic composites.
By Ginger Gardiner / Senior Editor
14 JUNE 2019
» With 7,000 employees worldwide and 2018 revenues of €2.2
billion, STELIA Aerospace (Toulouse, France) plainly states its
primary products and industry position: No. 1 in Europe/No.
3 in the world for aerostructures, No. 1 worldwide for pilot and
crew seats and No. 3 worldwide for first- and business-class
passenger seats.
STELIA Aerospace’s use of composites extends to Airbus A350
forward fuselage sections, wings for ATR turboprop aircraft,
various helicopter structures and
in some seat products, including
Small-town
its newest OPAL seat. Compos-
location,
ites production facilities include production
French sites Méaulte (large fuselage powerhouse
sections) and Salaunes (smaller Located a 1.5-hour drive north
composite parts), detailed parts and of Paris, STELIA Aerospace in
assembly in Morocco and Tunisia Méaulte covers 49 hectares
and a wide range of composite parts with 150,000 m2 of production
space, and delivered 860
for aircraft, defense and space at the fuselage sections for the
previous Composites Atlantic site in Airbus A320, A330, A350,
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada. A380 and A400M in 2018.
STELIA Aerospace was formed Source (all images) | STELIA Aerospace

via the 2015 merger of two previous Airbus subsid-
iaries — Aerolia and Sogerma. Its Méaulte site — a
1.5-hour drive north of Paris — covers 49 hectares
with 150,000 square meters of production space, 1,500
employees and 500 subcontractors, and is a key part
of the Airbus supply chain. Its small-town location
belies a production powerhouse, “delivering 860 nose
fuselage sections for the A320, A330, A350, A380 and
A400M in 2018,” says STELIA Méaulte communica-
tions manager Francois Fournier. He is my guide
through the site’s “Factory of the Future” A350 nose
fuselage production and the STELIALAB R&T facility,
accompanied by Olivier Canal, STELIA Aerospace
Méaulte head of R&T manufacturing, assembly &
automation, composites & digital factory, and Simon
Maire-Vigeur, head of R&T composites manufac-
turing, STELIALAB.
“Factory of the Future”
During an introductory presentation in the site’s
headquarters building, Fournier explains that STELIA
Aerospace has invested in future technologies, such
as digital manufacturing and automation including
augmented reality/virtual reality used to increase
efficiency in production and robots/cobots for more
efficient assembly.
STELIA Aerospace
AFP fuselage shells
After layup with Coriolis AFP systems, CFRP fuselage shell struc-
tures for section 12 and the section 11/12 lower unit are prepared
for autoclave cure.
“The future is composites and metallic structures,”
notes Canal. “We are trying to define future solutions
not to replace our workers, but to make them more
efficient.”
This drive for efficiency is perhaps best exemplified
by the “Factory of the Future” initiative started five
years ago to meet ramps in A320 and A350 produc-
tion. “We embraced a new industrial strategy for this
site,” recalls Canal, who was a project manager for
the initiative. “We wanted the ability to meet variable
production rates and developed flexible tooling which
we could repurpose from one program to another.”
Another result of this rethinking was dedicating
buildings to specific programs. “Each would have one
line and one team,” says Canal, “and be designed with
a lean manufacturing approach which focuses on
eliminating waste in labor, movement, materials and
process.” STELIA Aerospace also redesigned the A320
line, and gained a 10-20 percent increase in produc-
tivity, “which is actually a significant improvement,”
15
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
says Canal. “We achieved this in 2.5 years, changing
more than 50 percent of the footprint of this site’s
manufacturing while maintaining production and
100 percent on-time delivery with no loss in quality.”
This success is credited to high-level management
backing, “but we also worked hard for the workers to
have ownership,” he notes.
Canal explains that the design of the 30,000-square-
meter A350 production building was dictated by
flow, exemplified in its U-shape, with raw materials
entering one end and finished fuselage sections
exiting the other. “Everything for our A350 structures
production is in this building, from beginning layup
to final assembly. This is important, for example,
allowing any quality issues to be identified and
addressed quickly and easily,” he says.
For the A350, STELIA Aerospace produces the
nose fuselage section 11, which is all metal to better
resist bird strike damage, as well as the complex
metal/composite hybrid assembly for section 12
and the section 11/12 lower unit, which includes
the nose landing gear bay. Fournier shows STELIA
Aerospace’s “Factory of the Future” video, pointing
out the pulsed line, like that used for automo-
tive assembly. “We set up a demo line to allow the
workers to train and demystify this moving line,
which works at a specific takt time to meet full-rate
16 JUNE 2019
Continuous inspection
Various systems are used to continuously monitor the AFP process,
managed in a single clean room control center.
production,” says Canal.
Another aspect was digital technology. “Digital
solutions enabled us to put all of the technical sche-
matics and steps on a tablet and ensure access to
the latest 3D mockup for each section,” says Canal.
Workers are thus kept informed about crucial details
and changes while managers are easily notified about
potential issues. “We also developed augmented
reality to aid assembly, for example, projection onto
the fuselage shells showing which parts and where
the attachments are to be made,” notes Canal. He
adds that inspection cobots are used to complete 3D
scans of finished sections which are then compared to
the digital mockup, identifying any foreign objects or
missing parts, quality issues, etc.
Our tour began in the A350 production building’s
clean room, where Coriolis (Quéven, France) auto-
mated fiber placement (AFP) machines lay up large
carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) fuselage
shells for the section 11∕12 lower unit, and the crown
and two side shells for section 12. These shells are then
mated with prefabricated stringers, vacuum-bagged

and cured in an autoclave. After cure, they are
trimmed, loaded onto handling tools and transported
through assembly, which includes robotic drilling and
fastener installation. Every panel is inspected using
automated nondestructive testing (NDT). Completed
assemblies are delivered to the Airbus fuselage
assembly line in Saint Nazaire, France.
STELIALAB
The next stop is the 2,000-square-meter STELIALAB
R&T center, which occupies the left half of IndustriLAB,
a regional technology and training facility located just
to the south of the STELIA gated complex. STELIALAB
activities are dedicated to composites, assembly and
digital technologies.
The tour here starts again in the salle blanche (clean
room), a fairly large, open room with bagging supplies
and layup tools. Simon Maire-Vigueur explains the
group’s mission is to identify the future for low-cost,
high-volume production for mostly large and complex
parts. Industrialization of thermoset composites
includes high-speed AFP and liquid resin infusion (LRI)
STELIA Aerospace
Industrial-scale assembly
Cured CFRP shells are loaded onto handling tools and transported
through assembly steps, including robotic drilling and fastener
installation.
processes, including resin transfer molding (RTM), for
large, closed box structures such as wing components,
horizontal tail planes and vertical tail planes.
Leaving the clean room, we enter the AFP room
occupied by a Coriolis machine that can lay parts up to
4 meters in length. Dedicated for R&T, Maire-Vigueur
notes it is occupied for more than 200 days per year.
STELIALAB has developed a process for integrating
AFP-created dry stiffeners and skins that are cured out
of autoclave (OOA) using an oven or self-heated tools.
“We prefer LRI with lower injection pressure because
we can use cheaper tools,” says Maire-Vigueur.
TPC road map
This AFP machine was also used to lay up the skin
for the all-thermoplastic composite (TPC) helicopter
17
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
fuselage/tailboom demonstrator as part of the
ARCHES TP development program. Displayed at the
2017 Paris Air Show and also at JEC World in 2018
and 2019, it was made using 8 tows of 0.25-inch wide
carbon fiber/polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) tape
with laser heating. “We integrated the lightning strike
protection with the AFP during layup,” notes Maire-
Vigueur. “The skin was OOA-
cured using Kapton bagging
film, which is actually not very
convenient.” Omega-shaped “The future is composites
stringers were made from and metallic structures,”
purchased unidirectional
says Olivier Canal.
tape flat panels that
were stamp-formed by
Aviacomp (Toulouse,
France). The same
process was used for frames, but using plates made
from woven material supplied by Porcher (Badinières,
France) and stamped at Cetim (Nantes, France).
Though the frames were mechanically fastened in
standard fashion, the stringers were attached using
automated, dynamic induction welding. “This enables
lower cost and new design possibilities,” notes Maire-
Vigueur. “We also demonstrated overmolding for
attachment points, such as for electrical harnesses.”
When asked about the program’s challenges,
Maire-Vigueur
cites the layups, causes. Design is not separated from manufacturing
welding and
Read this article online |
short.compositesworld.com/STELIA 15-month
timeline. “Even
Read more about dynamic induction
welding | short.compositesworld. achieving
com/WeldTPCs the stamping
without too
much distor-
tion in the woven material was not easy,” he adds.
Though the tailboom design was completed by
STELIA Aerospace’s Toulouse design office, all of the
production was supervised by STELIALAB. However,
ARCHES TP was just one step in STELIA Aerospace’s
thermoplastic composites roadmap. The company
continues to develop TPC technologies to demon-
strate the feasibility of a full-scale TPC fuselage in the
following years.
Re-envisioning future aerostructures
Exiting the AFP room, the tour proceeds through a
very large, open hall that is sectioned into secure
18 JUNE 2019
“development cells” by temporary walls to protect
intellectual property. Walking across the hall and
turning left, we reach an area with a small Scholz
(Coesfeld, Germany) autoclave capable of 450°C, and
an injection machine for resin infusion. “Because our
roadmap is to cure OOA, we actually use the auto-
clave like an oven, curing thermoplastic composites
without pressure,” explains
Maire-Vigueur. There is a
curtained trim room and
an area next to it with NDT
equipment, including a
small C-scan system.
We turn again and enter a
large test laboratory. “We can
study polished cross-sections
for quality control and materials
and process investigations,” says Maire-Vigueur. The
lab also features a Romer (Hexagon Manufacturing
Intelligence, Shropshire, U.K.) arm for coordinate
measurement, and equipment for fiber volume ratio,
hardness and chemical testing. “All of the engineers in
our R&T team are able to do their own materials and
process control,” notes Maire-Vigueur. “We train them
to be able to operate from design through manufac-
ture to inspection and test of final parts. This is impor-
tant to understand the whole process and enables
quick assessment of suspected issues and their
and quality testing.”
The final stop is a large automatization lab within
one of the walled off areas. A brief glance inside
shows work exploring new assembly using robots and
cobots. “We are looking at further development of
smaller, more functional tooling and trying to imagine
how you could put parts together faster and with
lower cost,” says Canal. “Our culture is one of pushing
boundaries and breaking new ground. We have been
a leader in implementing robotics and now we are a
leader in pushing composites technology. We have
demonstrated our ability to rethink and re-envision
the future and we will never stop.”
CW senior editor Ginger Gardiner has an
engineering/materials background and more
than 20 years of experience in the composites
industry. ginger@compositesworld.com
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

Large, high-volume, infused composite

structures on the aerospace horizon

Infused carbon fiber composite structures are not new, but they
have never been built at the rates anticipated for next-generation,
single-aisle aircraft. It is a daunting prospect — but a feasible one.

By Jeff Sloan / Editor-in-Chief

» When Boeing and Airbus decided 15 years ago to
fabricate major structures of, respectively, the 787 and
A350 twin-aisle aircraft from carbon fiber composites,
myriad choices were made by both companies about
resin type, fiber format and manufacturing process.
MC-21 infused and integrated wing structure
The Irkut MC-21 features fully infused and integrated wing box, wing
skins and, shown here, wing spars. They are fabricated by Moscow-
based AeroComposit and feature one-piece construction.
Photo | Alexander Popov

Much of this decision-making was driven by material

trade studies, technologies available at the time,
material and capital equipment costs, and internal
and supplier manufacturing capacity, as well as the
expected build rate of the aircraft.
When it came to wing structures — wing box, spars,
ribs and skins — the decision was a simple one, at
least compared to decisions regarding fuselage struc-
ture fabrication. The long, moderately contoured
surfaces of wing structures were a good fit for auto-
mated tape laying (ATL) and automated fiber place-
ment (AFP). These systems are adept at accurately
and consistently laying large amounts of prepreg over
large areas quickly. And, the fact that the epoxy resin
matrix used in these prepregs required curing in very
large autoclaves was just part of the state of the art at
the time — the cost of the process. Further, the auto-
clave has a long history of very effectively consoli-
dating composite laminates and achieving the critical
sub-1 percent porosity levels that the aerospace
industry demands.
Much of this logic remained in place as late as 2013,

20 JUNE 2019

when Boeing launched the 777X. It features what
are, currently, the largest carbon fiber composite
wings in commercial aerospace history, with a total
wingspan of 72 meters. These are being manufactured
at Boeing’s wing fabrication plant in Everett, Wash.,
U.S., using Electroimpact AFP systems and the world’s
largest autoclaves — 8.5 by 37 meters — provided by
ASC Systems (Valencia, Calif., U.S.).
As the aerospace industry looks to the future,
however, the continued dominance of prepreg-based
fabrication for wing structures is less certain. The
infrastructure required for prepreg storage (freezers),
along with the chore of managing prepreg expiration
data, dulls the appeal of the material. On top of that
is the production bottleneck of assembling large,
complex, individually cured structures.
If, in fact, Boeing announces the New Middle
Aircraft (NMA or 797) this year as expected, and if
Boeing and/or Airbus decide in the next five years to
design replacements for the 737 and the A320, a host
of new material and process economics will have to
be considered. The 737 and A320 alone are the most
profitable for both companies, and with production
volumes for each plane anticipated to be as many
as 100 per month, they are sure to be manufactured
High-volume infusion
Infused wings on the A220
As the commercial aerospace industry considers a future with
infused wing structures, it will look to the single-aisle Airbus A220
for guidance. The plane features wing structures infused and
then autoclave-consolidated by Bombardier Aerostructures and
Engineering Services in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Pictured above is
one wing of the Airbus A220 at the Bombardier Belfast facility. This
infused structure uses Solvay resin and Teijin’s TENAX carbon fibers.
Sources | Airbus (left, below) and Teijin (above)
at rates that give even the staunchest composites
advocate pause.
It’s well understood that aluminum and carbon fiber
are in the running at both companies for fuselage and
wing structures. And diving even deeper, carbon fiber
composites under consideration run the gamut from
traditional prepregs applied all around to thermoplastic
composites for the fuselage (see story p. 44) to infused
composite structures for the wings.
Moving away from prepreg technology will require
significant investment in time, research, equipment
and people to prove the alternative technology’s
viability and then get it qualified. Prepreg, despite its
drawbacks, remains alluring for two big reasons: First,
many aerospace prepregs are already qualified, and in
aerospace, qualification is a black hole that consumes
money and time. Second, prepregs are supplied with
resin and fiber content in precisely controlled ratios,
which takes a variable out of a manufacturing process
that is already loaded with variables.
The siren call of infusion
The benefits of resin infusion derive primarily from
the fact that it is an out-of-autoclave (OOA) process.
Instead — and very simply — dry fiber reinforcement,
21
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
MC-21 preformed
stringers
One of the great benefits of
infusing large aerostructures
is the ability to integrate
components, thereby mini-
mizing assembly. Shown here
are preformed stringers for the
MC-21 wings, manufactured by
Moscow-based Aerocomposit.
Photo | Alexander Popov
either in unidirectional (UD) or multiaxial/non-crimp
fabric (NCF) format, is cut, kitted, placed in a mold,
preformed, vacuum bagged and then infused in an
oven with a one-part or two-part thermosetting resin
matrix. Infused structures can be co-cured, which
allows multi-component parts to be fabricated as a
single piece. However, the lack of autoclave and the
dependence on atmospheric pressure to achieve
consolidation increase the complexity potential of
the process.
That said, infusion is not new to commercial
aerospace, and although most infused aerostructures
have, traditionally, been smaller (flaps, pressure
bulkheads, etc.), large, fully OOA, infused structures
have been developed. Most notable among these
are the cargo door for the Airbus A400M military
transport; the Boeing 787 wing movable trailing edge
made with the patented CAPRI process; and the wings
and wing box of the MS-21 single-aisle commercial
airplane, developed by Russian aerospace OEM Irkut.
The MS-21 is currently in flight testing and is expected
to enter service in 2021.
Worth mentioning as well are the wings for the
single-aisle Airbus A220, which bridge the infusion/
autoclave gap. The A220 was developed by Bombardier
as the CSeries aircraft, until the program was sold to
Airbus in late 2017, and then renamed in 2018. The
A220 features infused wings that are subsequently
autoclave-consolidated at Bombardier Aerostructures
and Engineering Services in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The A220 wings use Teijin’s TENAX carbon fiber; Teijin
(Tokyo, Japan) and Bombardier in early 2019 signed a
contract extension for the wings through 2025.
22 JUNE 2019
Because the MS-21 wings are still in early production,
these structures are looked to first when aerospace
composites experts think about infusion for next-
generation aircraft. AeroComposit (Moscow, Russia),
which manufactures the MS-21 wings, has spent about a
decade working with European and American supplier
partners to develop the materials, tooling, automation
and processes used to fabricate the structures that
comprise the wing. The result is a highly integrated —
wing skins, stringers, spars — structure that obviates
the need for much of the assembly required of wing
structures made with autoclave-cured prepregs. That
said, AeroComposit told CompositesWorld in late
2018 that “the full manufacturing cycle of composite
parts, starting from the layup of the preforms and
until they are delivered for assembly, takes, as of now,
approximately two months.” Infusion and cure take 20
hours. This is what gives OEMs pause.
Torsten Lorenz, principal of Consultants TWL
(Daubach, Germany), worked with FACC (Ried im
Innkreis, Austria) to help AeroComposit develop the
base infusion processes and system used to fabricate
the MS-21 wing structures. Previous to that, and later, he
worked for Boeing at its Munich operations and Airbus
(EADS at the time) at its Augsburg, Germany, location
to help those companies develop infusion processes,
including Airbus’ well-known Vacuum Assisted Process
(VAP). Lorenz says there is a tendency among some
engineers within the aerospace composites world to
think about infusion only in terms of cost or time units.
“Over time, I have learned that infusion is not one
process,” he contends. “And it is not a cheap process, but
it does produce much less waste, and the fact that it uses
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23
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
UD fibers for MC-21
wing skin
Shown here are dry unidirec-
tional fibers placed for the
MC-21 wing skin, manufac-
tured by AeroComposit.
Non-crimp fabrics are also a
consideration for infusion and
are being closely evaluated by
Boeing. Photo | Alexander Popov
dry fibers makes it much easier to work with. The key
is not infusion itself, but the entire process. You must,
every time, look at the total process — the total system.”
What are the benefits of that total process? Lorenz
points to integrated structures, reduced assembly
time, better dimensional conformity, minimal or no
shimming, a better nondestructive inspection (NDI)
pass rate and minimal material springback. “Typi-
cally, with prepregs,” he says, “you assemble, check for
gaps, disassemble, shim, reassemble, check for gaps,
disassemble, shim, etc.” Some engineers fail to see
how infusion is cheaper and better, he says, particu-
larly given the long infusion time for large structures.
“But at the end, you need the total cost.”
By Lorenz’ estimation, AeroComposit, because
of its work on the MS-21 wings, is about a decade
ahead of the rest of the aerospace composites world
in the development, application and optimization of
infusion for large aerostructures. “The Russians are
learning day by day and are constantly optimizing.
They are way ahead,” he says.
The apparent head start that AeroComposit has
with infused wings for the MS-21 likely means that
there will be some technology transfer to China
as well, thanks to joint ventures between the two
countries. United Aircraft Corp. (UAC, Moscow),
which owns Irkut, has created a 50-50 joint venture
with Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd. (Comac,
Shanghai) called CRAIC. CRAIC is working on
development of the 929, a twin-aisle, twin-engine
passenger aircraft, similar to the 787 and A350, that
is projected to enter service in 2027. Lorenz contends
that this plane, given AeroComposit’s success with the
MS-21, almost certainly will feature infused wings.
Cost and risk
Because the largest question mark surrounding
24 JUNE 2019
large-structure infusion revolves around rate, it is
reasonable to look more closely at the process and
assess its viability as a high-volume fabrication process.
Everyone interviewed for this report notes that as
impressive as the MS-21 and A220 are, they still represent
low-volume use of infused structures. Getting the
process to the next level is within reach, but it will be an
expensive, arduous reach.
Rob Blackburn, director of engineering application at
Solvay Composite Materials (Alpharetta, Ga., U.S.), says
infusion’s viability depends on how quickly it can be
industrialized. “It really comes down to cost of owner-
ship and risk,” he says. “For infusion, it’s the ability
to integrate complex structures. But this comes with
risk — tooling, fixtures, the robustness of the process.
Complexity and integration are key.”
Indeed, within the infusion process itself, there are
material and design decisions to be made that can
affect how suited it is for the application. Consider,
for example, the choice between one-component or
two-component resin. Most infusion processes use a
two-component system, which combines epoxy and
hardener just prior to infusion into the preform. The
risk here is twofold: Resin/hardener dosing accuracy
and exotherm. Exotherm, in particular, could be a chal-
lenge, given the large volume of resin a wing structure
requires. In addition, the combination of resin and
hardener at the mold initiates cure immediately, which
limits infusion time.
For this reason, Lorenz prefers a high-temperature-
cure, one-component resin matrix, which eliminates the
variability of hardener dosing. It also allows the fabricator
to infuse resin at a temperature high enough to minimize
resin viscosity during injection and infusion, but not so
high that cure is initiated. This provides the time needed
to wet out fibers prior to start of cure.
Then there is the question of what is being infused.
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 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Non-crimp fabric for infused part
Hexcel exhibited on its stand at JEC World 2019 this demonstrator
part, designed to show the complexity and integration possible
with an infused structure. This part features HiMax AS7 non-crimp,
biaxial fabric infused with HexFlow RTM6 resin. Photo | CW
AeroComposit, for the MS-21 wings, uses only
unidirectional fabrics — with automated fiber
placement (AFP) — which help facilitate fiber wetout,
but also necessitate a potentially more complex
layup architecture. Dry fibers also can be more easily
steered by AFP, which helps facilitate more contoured
architectures. “That does open the design envelope
and expand the intrinsic value of composites,” argues
Blackburn. “That is where you start to see the value of
dry-fiber architecture.”
The alternative is multiaxial, stitched non-crimp
fabric (NCF), which provides a convenient quasi-
isotropic fiber structure, but tends to generate
more waste. “Keep in mind that at some point,
you still have to introduce the resin to the fiber,”
Blackburn says. “You have to deal with the physics
of the fiber, permeability issues, the viscosity of
the resin. Buy-to-fly ratios need to be watched. UD
26 JUNE 2019
with AFP has a good buy-to-fly ratio and low waste.
NCF is higher volume, but more waste.” Lorenz
also notes that the presence of stitching in an NCF
reduces total fiber volume, which can affect ultimate
mechanical properties of the structure. “UD is a better
approximation of prepreg fiber volume fraction and
performance,” he says.
Still, there is research being done to improve the
viability of NCF for infusion. Jason Gibson, chief appli-
cations engineer at composites distributor Composites
One (Arlington Heights, Ill., U.S.), says thin ply NCFs are
gaining traction, as are NCFs optimized for large aero-
structures. For example, spread-tow, thin-ply specialist
Chomarat’s (Le Cheylard, France) C-PLY product is a
two- to four-ply NCF using 12K tow to 50K tow carbon
fibers ranging from 100 to 1,200 gsm (total weight). And
multiaxial fabric manufacturer Vectorply (Phenix City,
Ala., U.S.) has been working for eight years with Boeing
and Mississippi State University on new NCF reinforce-
ments that are optimized for large-part infusion.
Ultimately, assuming the technical challenges are
solved, the virtues of infusion — material handling ease,
OOA, integrated structures, reduced assembly cost —
seem well positioned to propel the process into a future
commercial aircraft. It will be up to the OEMs, however,
to make that happen.
Wing of Tomorrow
Airbus, for its part, is executing the most overt effort
to accelerate its infusion capabilities for next-genera-
tion aircraft, having launched its Wing of Tomorrow
Programme. Wing of Tomorrow is a research and
development effort run out of Airbus’ massive aircraft
wing manufacturing facilities in Filton and Bristol, U.K.
The program is being supported in part by the National
Composite Centre (NCC, Bristol) and the Advanced
Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC, Sheffield, U.K.),
as well as commercial partners like Northrop Grumman
(through its Clearfield, Utah, U.S. facility, formerly
Orbital ATK), GE Aviation (Hamble, U.K.), GKN (Bristol)
and Spirit AeroSystems (Wichita, Kan., U.S.).
Richard Oldfield, CEO of the NCC, says the Wing
of Tomorrow Programme’s goal is to develop a
very high-rate commercial aircraft wing structure
manufacturing process that is, in nearly every
measurable way, an order of magnitude better than
current wing manufacturing technology. This means
better automation, fewer parts, better parts integration,
faster cycle time, faster NDI and faster assembly. “The
program seeks to achieve a fundamental step change in
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
aircraft manufacturing,” he says.
The most daunting challenge facing Oldfield’s goal
comes down to rate. Airbus is currently manufacturing
the composites-intensive A350 at a rate of 10 per
month. If, as expected, composites are used to fabricate
wings for an A320 replacement, the likely rate of
production, according to several sources contacted
by CompositesWorld for this report, is 100 shipsets per
month — that’s more than three shipsets per day. Can
the infusion process be sufficiently optimized to meet
that target?
NCC aims to find out. Oldfield says Wing of
Tomorrow partners are working with, through and
at the NCC in a phased program to develop infused
wing spars, stringers and skins. (The wing box is being
developed separately at AMRC.) Oldfield says NCC has
been given, by Airbus, cost, rate and TRL targets for
every component. Based on trade studies performed
by NCC, says Oldfield, “Infusion seems like the
technology with the most potential.” To that end, the
center will develop integrated skin and spar structures,
with infusion performed an industrially capable resin
system. All of this work demands significant space
and capex resources; to that end, NCC is expanding
its facilities for the Wing of Tomorrow project and
adding 10 new pieces of equipment, including dry fiber
placement machines, molds and metering systems.
The NCC effort will progress through fabrication
of wings measuring 1 meter, 3 meters, 5 meters and
several iterations up to 17 meters. Full-scale trials
and testing of wing skins and spars, says Oldfield, are
expected to commence in the third quarter 2019 and
into 2020, with delivery for assembly into a full wing
structure (wing box, skins, spars) expected by the end
of 2020. Testing of the full wing is expected to be done
through 2021.
“Our goal is to allow Airbus and partners to make
[material and process] decisions when they are ready,”
says Oldfield. “Is this the right technology choice
for Airbus to make? The outlook is promising at the
moment.”
Uncertainty at Boeing
Visibility into Boeing’s efforts to develop materials and
processes for infusion of large wing structures is more
opaque. Although the company declined to comment for
this report, there are public signals being sent by Boeing
that provide some clues about its interest in infusion.
First, although Boeing is adept with infusion, it
has historically confined series fabrication of infused
28 JUNE 2019
composite parts and structures to those that weigh less
than 50 pounds. Most of the process development done
for these parts has been performed at Boeing Australia
(Melbourne), which manufactures the wing trailing
edge flaps for the 787 using NCFs/fabrics and infusion.
In 2015, Boeing announced that it had selected
Mississippi State University’s Raspet Flight Research
Laboratory to host the company’s Stitched Resin
Infused Composite Research Center, which, as the name
implies, is focused on use of stitched, non-crimp fabrics
in the infusion process.
In the meantime, as noted above, for the 777X Boeing
doubled-down on the same — albeit updated — fiber-
placed, autoclave-cured prepreg technology used to
fabricate the wings for the 787. For Boeing to catch up to
AeroComposit or Airbus in infusion R&D would require
a level of personnel and capital equipment invest-
ment that the company, it appears, is not yet willing to
make. In any case, if and when the NMA is announced,
consensus among the experts consulted for this report is
that the wings on that plane will use prepregged rein-
forcements cured in an autoclave. Beyond the NMA, a
737 replacement could be a candidate for infused wing
structures, assuming significant advances in infusion
development and understanding at the OEM.
A bright future?
Expect, over the next five years, significant global
research and development to sort out resin,
reinforcement, preforming, automation and other
variables in an effort to increase reliability, speed
cycle time and reduce overall complexity of large-part
infusion. Beyond that five-year horizon, assuming
technology continues to progress, high-rate infusion
of commercial aircraft wings seems feasible within the
decade. R&D investment as well as serious OEM interest
demonstrate the promise this process holds. Says
Blackburn: “I do believe the gap between autoclave and
infusion is as close as it’s ever been.”
Read this article online |
short.compositesworld.com/aeroinfuse
Jeff Sloan is editor-in-chief of
CompositesWorld, and has been engaged in
plastics- and composites-industry journalism
for 24 years. jeff@compositesworld.com
Structural Materials
of the Future — Now
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 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Tackling the aerospace supplier’s
dilemma: Scalability
Automation and robotics
can go a long way toward
increasing capacity and
growing a business
dedicated to aerospace
manufacturing. But Trin-
ity Precision has learned
that refining the indirect
and unseen aspects of its
operations can be just as
valuable.
By Brent Donaldson / Senior Editor
30 JUNE 2019
Makino A61nx cell
control center
A machine operator at Trinity
Precision sets up a tombstone
(made by Abbott Workholding
Products) in the control
center for a Makino A61nx cell.
Trinity’s first major investment
after purchasing the company
five years ago was in an A61
cell. It now has three and plans
to add another this year.
Source (all photos) | Peter Zelinski
» As commercial aviation expands to accommodate a new class
of international travelers from emerging markets such as China
and India, demand on small and midsized aerospace suppliers to
expand production capacity is placing a premium not just on auto-
mation or skilled labor, but on the supplier’s overall scalability.
The challenge of accommodating for growth and increasing
throughput is different today than it was just a few years ago. With
a shrinking supply of skilled manufacturing workers responsible
for increasingly automated and complex machining processes,
scaling up now favors knowledge sharing and the systemization of
operations over the traditional goal of simply boosting employee
headcount.
This became clear during a recent visit to Trinity Precision, a
Wichita, Kan., U.S.-based supplier of machined parts and assem-
blies for major aerospace companies and defense firms, such as
Boeing (Chicago, Ill., U.S.), Textron Aviation (Wichita, Kan., U.S.),
Spirit AeroSystems (Wichita), Northrop Grumman (Falls Church,
Va., U.S.) and Gulfstream (Savannah, Ga., U.S.). David May, Trin-
ity’s president and co-founder, purchased the shop five years ago
when it operated primarily using three-axis vertical mills. May
 Tackling scalability

had recently worked at another facility

that had undergone a transformation
from vertical to horizontal machining
centers (HMCs) with palletized equip-
ment, including Makino (Mason, Ohio,
U.S.) and Mazak (Florence, Ky., U.S.)
cell systems. After purchasing Trinity,
he and his team followed suit and
began to invest in robotic and pallet-
ized HMCs, including a Makino A61
five-axis HMC with its multi-mission
compatible (MMC) vehicle system.
The purchase was a big win for the
company, allowing it to standardize
tooling and workholding approaches,
add instant capacity by simplifying
setups, and run the parts as much as 60
percent faster than on the verticals.
But to say that the A61 cells were the
only investment toward scalability that FANUC VMC for high-mix, low-volume
May and his team at Trinity have made Trinity added this FANUC (Rochester Hills, Mich., U.S.) Robodrill vertical machining
in the last five years would undercut center in 2016 to run high-mix, low-volume parts with the aid of its five-axis robotic
at least two impressive aspects of their arm. The Robodrill enables the workpieces to be staged in a row and loaded auto-
matically — in less than 12 seconds each — for a two-stage machining operation.
story — a story that involves robotics
and automation, but at its core is
about eliminating tribal knowledge in
favor of shared and instant access to
information.
It’s a story that started with a
thorough cleaning.

Whack-a-Mole
When I visited Trinity Precision this
past February, May and his team
emphasized one key point at the
outset: The shop that they’d taken over
was, to put it gently, a mess. The walls
were covered in grime. Tools and raw
materials were scattered throughout
the shop. An open coolant barrel sat
underneath a circuit breaker box. File
cabinets contained the old company’s
paper folder system it still used for
work orders. May’s team calculated that
each shopfloor employee had to travel Machining the dovetail form
more than 3,000 feet per work order per For this part, the Robodrill machines a dovetail form into the workpiece to maximize
setup just to collect the necessary parts the exposure for machining operations. When the cycle is complete, all that is left
and tools. Assembly operations took holding the dovetail to the finished part are two small tabs.

31
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Real-time machine performance displays
Trinity displays signage to identify different cells and activities inside the facility, including real-time
displays of machine performance. These metrics are all tied to its global MRP system.
place on plastic folding tables.
On the first day after taking over operations, May
shut down the business for 72 hours to clean the
facility. The team, which included several employees
who stayed after he took over, filled a dozen 20-foot-
long dumpsters with trash.
But in many ways the near-gutting of the shop
provided an opportunity to start from scratch. And
the investment in the A61 cell and pallet system
certainly was a significant leap forward. In less than a
year, the team standardized tooling and workholding
approaches in a manner that allowed them to program
nearly 350 unique part numbers using fewer than 20
unique workholding components. Today, the number
of parts running on the A61 has increased to 800.
In 2016, Trinity added a FANUC Robodrill
machining center that allows the company to run
high-mix, low-volume jobs with the aid of a five-
axis robotic arm. While there was room to increase
the capacity for the A61 cell, many of Trinity’s parts
begin with similar workpieces that take a consider-
able amount of time to load and unload. The Robo-
drill enables the workpieces to be staged in a row and
loaded automatically — in less than 12 seconds each
— for a two-stage milling operation. It machines a
dovetail profile into one side of the workpiece blank,
the robotic arm flips the piece over, and a second
32 JUNE 2019
vise jaw takes hold of the newly machined dovetail
— a workholding solution that exposes nearly all of
the workpiece to the next machining operation that
completes the part. In the meantime, the first jaw
takes hold of a new workpiece.
When the cycle is complete, all that is left holding
the dovetail to the finished part are two small tabs.
The machine operator then takes a large rubber mallet
and, Whack-a-Mole style, knocks the part loose from
the tabs, leaving only two small burrs to be removed.
Chris VanNover, Trinity’s co-founder and vice presi-
dent of operations, says that after the company hired
programmers to create the initial programming code
for the Robodrill, operators now can teach the robot
new operations without having to write new code.
“Now we can hand-walk the robotic arm through a
new program step by step to find a new position, move
it, reteach that position, change it for the raw material,
reteach that position again, then save that as a unique
program,” he says. “With very small modifications, we
can take an existing program, make a couple modi-
fications, copy it and save it as a different program
number.”
In a way, this manual method of programming is
one example of democratizing information for the
greater good at Trinity. But when the company began
to integrate cross-departmental data into its material
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 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

Customized production reports

Trinity’s production report can be customized, but in this case it displays sales order status, order
quantities, completion dates and whether the part is waiting for material. Every department at Trinity
has access to this live data, and the report is widely used throughout the shop. The company credits this
data-sharing capability as being just as important as its machining technologies for growing its business.

requirements planning (MRP) system, it took this
concept much further.
Tribal counsel
Some shops can get by with an organizational struc-
ture in which only a small number of employees have
access to key pieces of information. This information
could be data from machine monitoring analytics,
materials procurement, shipping and receiving,
production schedules, or any number of business
operations. When this information is localized within
a single department, or even a small number of
employees within that department, those employees
serve as gatekeepers of that information. If Bob in
your shipping department isn’t around to tell you
when the next shipment of material is scheduled to
arrive, tough luck! Your customers will have to wait
until Bob is back before you can tell them when their
parts will be delivered.
Contrast that with this fact: Trinity’s home of
Wichita is one of the nation’s largest aerospace manu-
facturing hubs. To spotlight what this means for
companies like Trinity that want to scale up their busi-
nesses, consider that the day before visiting Trinity I
visited the vast headquarters of Spirit AeroSystems,
the world’s largest aerostructures manufacturer,
and briefly met the head of Spirit’s HR department.
She excitedly told us that the company was pushing
forward with plans to hire 1,400 new employees over
the next year — in addition to the 1,000 it hired last
year. For Trinity, this means that growing its business
necessarily includes strategies and tactics well beyond
increasing employee headcount. And key among
those strategies is streamlining and sharing informa-
tion across processes and departments.
To jumpstart that goal, the company hired a
business systems manager, Jason Hansen, to integrate
information flows from multiple departments into its
MRP system. The result is a sort of master data hub
that all departments rely on for information related to
production, shipping, materials and more.
For instance, Trinity uses Machine Metrics
(Northampton, Mass., U.S.) software as its machine
monitoring platform. Hansen has integrated the

34 JUNE 2019
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 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

Adding an
automation
engineer
In the past, Trinity employed
an inspector who measured
the nuanced features of each
part to confirm its identity — a
painstakingly slow and tedious
process. Just two weeks
before my visit, the shop had
brought onboard automa-
tion engineer Joel Koripalli,
pictured here, to find a better
solution. Oklahoma-based
custom automation provider
Rye Design helped create this
measurement system that uses
Keyence vision technologies
with a software interface that
Koripalli is programming and
refining.

Machine Metrics data into Trinity’s global MRP
system to track information such as machine clocking,
utilization, spindle engagement and operator loading.
Installed throughout the plant floor are large-screen
monitors that display live data from the MRP from
machining centers throughout the shop. As Chris
VanNover points out, this information delivers owner-
ship of production to the operators. “Why? Because
now they can see, number one, what’s expected of
them,” he says, “and number two, they can look up at
the screen and realize, ‘Oh no, I’m in the red!’ But now
they’re empowered to say, ‘If I can flip two of these red
cells to green, boom, we can get back on schedule.’”
Just as importantly, these data are linked directly to
related processes from each job’s original quote, such
as material tracking and shipping. All of this informa-
tion can be accessed in the production queue of the
MRP system. For instance, an operator can open the
queue to see a prioritized list of jobs that are sched-
uled to run on any given work center. With one click,
that operator can check the material availability for
those jobs as well as whether that material might be
needed for higher priority jobs. “It helps us to avoid
robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Hansen says. He points to
the onscreen display at a job scheduled to run on a
Haas VMC that needs 10 workpieces. “It needs 10, but
we have eight in stock that can be allocated to it,” he
says. “So he knows right away: if we need 10 but only
have eight, does it make sense to reduce it and run
the eight?” To answer that question, Hansen says, the
operator just clicks on the material tab to see when
the next order is scheduled for delivery. There is no
legwork involved, and the system tells him right away
when he can get those parts out.
Sound vision
One of the chief reasons that a major aerospace
company like Boeing might reject a part or assembly
from a supplier is part misidentification. Some of the
parts that Trinity manufactures contain geometries
that are nearly identical to others, which is a problem
that might not become apparent until far down the
assembly line when the part does not mate to its
designated location. The potential for wasted time and
money is great, not to mention the potential hazard
created if a faulty part finds its way onto an aircraft.
Misidentified parts have been a cause of concern
for Trinity typically when they are returned from
outside operations back to Trinity for assembly.
In the past, the company employed an inspector
who measured the nuanced features of each part
to confirm its identity — a painstakingly slow and
tedious process. Just two weeks before my visit, Trinity
had brought onboard an automation engineer named
Joel Koripalli to find a better solution.
Trinity worked with Oklahoma-based custom auto-
mation provider Rye Design to create a system that
uses Keyence (Itasca, Ill., U.S.) vision technologies
and a software interface that Koripalli is programming
and refining. After just two weeks on the job, he had

36 JUNE 2019
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 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

Reducing time
and price
Here, Chris VanNover, Trinity’s
vice president of operations,
holds a part that was formerly
machined on VMCs much less
efficiently than on HMCs. After
greatly reducing setup time
for this part (in addition to
other efficiencies), Trinity has
dropped the price for this part
by 30 percent.

already programmed dozens of the hundreds of parts
that the system will eventually inspect. The finished
process is simple: Scan the barcode of the part
number, place the part face-up into a mini-fridge-
sized box and push a button to engage the vision
system. If the key features of the original part (based
on a previous scan of the part, and not a CAD model)
are identical to those of the part being scanned, an
indicator light turns green. If the features do not
match, the light turns red. This saves substantial time
while greatly improving accuracy over the manual
process.
From robotics and automation to inspection and
data sharing, the
systemization
Read this article online | of processes at
short.compositesworld.com/Trinity Trinity touches
nearly every
aspect of its
operations. When May and his team realized that their
customer service representatives were constantly
tracking down team members from the shipping
department to ask whether parts had been packed
or delivered, they calculated the costs related to the
shipping department having to stop and look up the
part number in its system. Trinity team members
tackled the problem first by adjusting the physical
layout of the shipping department and designating
aisles for different part families. They also automated
data entry processes tied to shipping, so when an
employee scans a packing slip, that information is
instantly available to customer service representa-
tives (and others) through the MRP system. Even the
printers within the shipping department are kept
separate according to different part families.
All of these aspects of Trinity’s core business opera-
tions represent potential costs and lost time when
uncertainty about any given process creeps in. The
tangible benefits for efficiencies in machining opera-
tions might be easier to identify, but the indirect and
unseen aspects of business operations need to be
analyzed and refined, too. This is at the core of what
May and his team — now up to 73 employees — are
doing. In five years, they’ve tripled the shop’s revenue
to $18 million, and aim to hit $50 million within the
next five.
“Businesses that aren’t developing a way to
automate both the manufacturing process and trans-
actional data will be in serious trouble trying to find
people,” May says. “There’s a strategic imperative. The
more that we can automate the mundane, the trans-
actional, the more we elevate our current workforce
to employ higher-level skills that bring value to them
and their families.”
Brent Donaldson is senior editor for Modern
Machine Shop and Additive Manufactur-
ing Magazine, and writes about advanced
manufacturing and industrial 3D printing.
bdonaldson@mmsonline.com

38 JUNE 2019
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Thermoplastic composites:
Poised to step forward
The evolving role of
thermoplastic materials
and processes and their
future in next-genera-
tion commercial aircraft.
By Scott Francis / Senior Editor
40 JUNE 2019
» Thermoplastic composite (TPC) Thermoplastic
usage in commercial aircraft seems to potential
have reached a tipping point in the past Premium Aerotec’s A320
couple of years. While TPCs have been pressure bulkhead illustrates
how the weldability of ther-
used for some time for smaller parts
such as clips and brackets, thermoplas-
moplastics has the potential
to enable larger aircraft
tics have been working their way into components.
larger aircraft structures incrementally Photo | Scott Francis
and now seemed poised to play a bigger
role in the future of commercial aircraft.
In March 2018, Toray Industries Inc. (Tokyo, Japan), the world’s
largest carbon fiber manufacturer, acquired TenCate Advanced
Composites (Morgan Hill, Calif., U.S. and Nijverdal, Nether-
lands) for €930 million (TenCate has since changed its name to
Toray Advanced Composites). The move seemed to be an effort to
strengthen Toray’s thermoplastics capabilities in preparation for the
next wave of commercial aircraft development. Shortly after that

announcement, Hexcel (Stamford, Conn., U.S.) and
Arkema Inc. (King of Prussia, Pa., U.S.) announced a
strategic alliance to develop thermoplastic composite
solutions for aerospace, combining Hexcel’s skill in
carbon fiber manufacture with Arkema’s polyether-
ketoneketone (PEKK) resins expertise. And over the
course of the year, several other pieces of the thermo-
plastics puzzle seemed to fall into place.
In April 2018, Premium Aerotec GmbH (Augsburg,
Germany) unveiled a demonstrator for an Airbus
(Toulouse, France) A320 pressure bulkhead it had
developed and manufactured using carbon fiber in
a thermoplastic matrix. The demonstrator, which
consists of eight welded segments, illustrates how
the weldability of thermoplastics has the potential to
enable larger aircraft components. (See Learn More.)
In August 2018, Solvay (Alpharetta, Ga., U.S.),
Premium Aerotec and Faurecia Clean Mobility
(Columbus, Ohio, U.S.) launched IRG CosiMo
(Industry Research Group: Composites for Sustain-
able Mobility), a consortium focused on the
Thermoplastic composites
Thermoplastic fuselage on display
At JEC World 2019, GKN Fokker showcased an area-ruled
thermoplastic composite fuselage panel — a joint R&D project with
Gulfstream Aerospace — that uses welding technology to create a
large part. Photo | Scott Francis
development of materials and process technologies
aimed at enabling high-volume production of ther-
moplastic composites for the aerospace and automo-
tive markets. The consortium combines companies
along the entire thermoplastic composites process
chain from materials to machinery to applications in
automotive and aerospace. (See Learn More.)
Solvay has been partnering with GKN Fokker
(Hoogeveen, Netherlands) to advance technology
and further adoption of TPCs for large aerospace
structures since June 2017. The company launched
PEKK polymer production in September 2017 and
then doubled its qualified UD thermoplastic tape
capacity in 2018. Earlier in 2019, Solvay commissioned
41
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Fully welded frames
This thermoplastic fuselage
panel by GKN Fokker and
Gulfstream Aerospace
features simple “butt-jointed”
orthogrid stiffening and fully
welded frames (no fasteners).
Photo | Scott Francis
a dedicated TPC research lab in Alpharetta, Ga., U.S.,
aimed at the development of next-generation mate-
rials. Solvay plans to commence qualification of a
new UD tape line in late 2019.
Teijin Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) announced in January
2019 that its Tenax carbon fiber and carbon fiber/
thermoplastic unidirectional pre-impregnated
tape (Tenax TPUD) has been qualified by Boeing
(Chicago, Ill., U.S.) for use as an intermediate
advanced composite material for primary structural
parts. (See Learn More.)
As these and similar technologies and materials
progress, a picture of how the aerospace industry
might start to look in the years and decades to come
gradually comes into focus. The role of TPCs is
becoming an increasingly larger part of that picture.
Fabricators are interested in taking advantage of
the manufacturing benefits and fast processing times
of thermoplastics, and in using TPCs to start making
larger structures such as fuselage panels and ribs. In
addition, thermoplastics boast high fracture tough-
ness; good mechanical properties; recyclability; low
flame, smoke and toxicity (FST) and can be stored at
room temperature. And as OEMs and aerospace tier
suppliers become more familiar with thermoplastics,
they’re being used for more complex parts, welded
42 JUNE 2019
assemblies and primary structures.
According to Steve Mead, managing director at
Toray Advanced Composites (formerly TenCate),
“[Major airframers] are really looking for a material
solution that has the rate capabilities of aluminum
and the weight capabilities of carbon fiber-based
material — thermoplastics kind of bridge that gap.”
Processability of TPCs
A big part of why TPCs are finding their place in
aircraft programs is their processability. Because ther-
moplastics are already fully polymerized, they have
faster production rates than thermosets, which must
undergo cure.
“When you look at the amount of time it takes to
make a thermoset part today and compare it with
the amount of time it takes to make a thermoplastic
composite part, [thermoplastic] is about 10 times
faster,” says Mike Favaloro, president and CEO of
CompositeTechs LLC (Amesbury, Mass., U.S.), a
composite industry consultancy.
A big advantage of thermoplastic automated fiber
placement (AFP) compared to thermoset AFP —
particularly given the lack of cure cycle — are higher
production rates due to faster processing time. There
are cost savings to be found in in-situ lamination and
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Recycling thermoplastic production scrap

TPAC and TPRC’s TPC-Cycle project is focused on production scrap from collection to shredding and
reprocessing through to application. Photo | Scott Francis

out-of-autoclave (OOA) post-consolidation. Plus,
taking the autoclave out of the equation allows for the
development of larger structures.
David Leach, director of business development for
ATC Manufacturing (Post Falls, Idaho, U.S.), acknowl-
edges that the unit cost of thermoplastics exceeds
the cost of thermosets, but argues that TPC material
prices will come down. Further, he says, processing
efficiencies offer an opportunity to reduce costs today.
The general consensus in the composites industry is
that OOA thermoplastic processes, right now, offer
costs savings of more than 30 percent compared to
thermosets.
“Thermoplastics are finding their way into
programs even after planes have gone into produc-
tion,” Leach points out. “It’s a testament to the cost
benefits of thermoplastics.”
The potential of high-performance matrix polymers
extends beyond what is currently available on the
market. Doug Brademeyer, head of Ultra-Polymers
Materials at Solvay, says the company is working
both internally and with partners to develop tailored
polymers that are customized for the different fabrica-
tion processes.
“We are excited by these tailored PAEK solutions
and can rapidly bring these to commercialization in
our world scale assets, based on customer needs,” says
Brademeyer.
Low-melt PAEK
With aircraft OEMs and suppliers scrambling for
higher production rates, processability is key. Poly-
etheretherketone (PEEK) has long been the favored
thermoplastic polymer since it is the most widely
qualified. But according to Favaloro, low-melt polyar-
lyetherketone (LM PAEK) offers some advantages,
especially for automated processing methods like ATL.
“PEEK is processible via stamp forming and contin-
uous molding, but LM PAEK processes at a lower
temperature, has a lower working viscosity which
allows for better automated processing, and has a
lower degree of crystallinity which reduces residual
molding stresses,” he says. “The ultimate goal is to use
an ATL machine to lay [the tape] down and be done

44 JUNE 2019

with it — you need the right degree of crystallinity, a
good window and good laydown speeds.”
LM PAEK has a wide process window of 350-385°C.
For reference, polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) processing
temperatures range from 330-350°C, while polyether-
ketoneketone (PEKK) and PEEK processing tempera-
tures are 380°C and 400°C, respectively.
“The material has gotten so much traction because
of its processability,” says Scott Unger, chief tech-
nical officer at Toray Advanced Composites. Toray
Advanced Composites collaborated with Victrex
(Lancashire, U.K.) to produce Cetex TC1225, a unidi-
rectional tape using LM PAEK.
“The intent with the development of TC1225 was
to create a product that processed easily at tempera-
tures close to that used for PPS, had a favorable cost
position for the end user and
had the mechanical and fluid
resistance properties of PEEK,”
Amid the din of excitement
says Unger. “With TC1225 LM
PAEK, I feel that we accom- about these materials, the
plished all of those goals.” question that arises is,
Cetex TC1225 is have TPCs arrived?
currently undergoing
qualification by the
National Center for
Advanced Materials Performance (NCAMP, Wichita,
Kan., U.S.). In addition, Toray says there are two
major airframer-based qualifications in the works
for the material, as well as a couple of qualifications
programs based on emerging markets such as urban
air mobility.
Tapes using LM PAEK are reportedly yielding
improved laydown speeds. Tim Herr, director of Aero-
space SBU at Victrex, says, “The laydown rates we can
achieve for both in-situ AFP and out-of-autoclave
consolidated AFP are unprecedented.” He indicates
that 60 meters per minute can be achieved on oven-
consolidated panels; 20 meters per minute reportedly
is possible with in-situ consolidation.
In terms of quality, Unger claims that low-melt
PAEK offers the ability to get the same laminate
quality using in-situ fiber placement as with a fiber-
placed laminate that’s been put through a post-fiber
placement oven consolidation.
Composites bonding
The weldability of TPCs is a big advantage of the
material for use in developing aircraft. Fusion
Thermoplastic composites
bonding/welding offers an alternative to mechanical
fastening and the use of adhesives, both of which are
employed for joining thermoset composite parts.
Stephen Heinz, product development director at
Solvay, says, “Joining and welding plays a major role
in the future of assembly and has the potential to cut
costs and improve the reliability of aerostructures.
Companies like GKN Fokker are taking the lead in
demonstrating welding.”
GKN Fokker has been working to develop TPC
welding for some time, having started experimenting
with resistance welding of thermoplastics in the
1990s. The company has been using thermoplastic
welding processes to join leading-edge internal ribs
and skins. At JEC World 2019, the company show-
cased an area-ruled (shaped to minimize drag)
thermoplastic composite
fuselage panel manu-
factured using Solvay’s
APC (PEKK-FC) UD tape.
The panel is the result of a
joint R&D project between
GKN Fokker and Gulfstream
Aerospace (Savannah, Ga.,
U.S.). The part is reportedly the
lowest-cost composite panel, due
to simple “butt-jointed” orthogrid stiffening and fully
welded frames.
“With thermoplastics, an orthogrid can be greatly
simplified by ‘butt joining’ the grid to the skin,”
explains Arnt Offringa, head of Thermoplastic
Composites Technology Development for GKN
Fokker. “The grid is now made up of just simple,
flat preforms that are co-consolidated with the skin
laminate to form a low-cost, integrally stiffened
shell. Frames are welded onto the grid. These welds
are loaded in shear, making it feasible to leave out
all bolts.”
While welded thermoplastic structures have been
used on aircaft for some time, the technology now
seems well-poised for use in primary structures. Mike
Favaloro believes aerospace fabricators and OEMs
are gaining confidence with TPCs, particularly with
process control. “On a 10-year horizon we’ll start to
see it adopted much more,” he says. (See Learn More.)
Going tool-less
Another innovation on the horizon that could
enable acceleration of thermoplastics use is tool-less
45
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
composites manufacturing. The concept, as the name
implies, obviates the need for traditional molds and
tooling, replacing them with robotics.
Aerospace manufacturer General Atomics
Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI, San Diego, Calif.,
U.S.) is developing such a process for the fabrication
of thermoplastic composite structures. Composite
Automation LLC (Cape Coral, Fla., U.S.), using
Mikrosam (Prilep, Macedonia) equipment, worked
with GA-ASI to develop the automation. The process
uses two 6-axis robots working together to place
thermoplastic tape. One robot consists of a standard
unidirectional tape placement system that provides
laser heating to perform in-situ consolidation of the
thermoplastic material. The second robot provides
Read this article online |
short.compositesworld.com/TPC_aero
Learn more about Premium Aerotec’s A320 pressure
bulkhead demonstrator |
short.compositesworld.com/PAdemoBH
Learn more about the IRG CosiMo consortium |
short.compositesworld.com/IRGCosiMo
Read about Teijin’s material qualification with Boeing |
short.compositesworld.com/TPUDBoeing
Read more about welding technologies |
short.compositesworld.com/WeldTPCs
Read about GA-ASI’s tool-less process |
short.compositesworld.com/notoolTPCs
support, working opposite the automated tape layer
(ATL) to provide a movable tooling surface against
which the ATL places tape. (See Learn More.)
Recyclability
Another benefit of TPCs is recyclability. Because
thermoplastic polymers can be remelted and reshaped,
several companies are looking toward TPCs as a way to
re-use materials.
One such recycling initiative, operated by the
Thermoplastic Composites Application Center (TPAC,
Enschede, Netherlands) and the Thermoplastic
Composites Research Center (TPRC, Enschede,
Netherlands), is focused on re-use of production scrap
from TPC processing, from collection to shredding
and reprocessing through to application. The
TPC-Cycle project is working to develop an affordable,
environmentally friendly recycling route for high-end,
46 JUNE 2019
high-volume markets — all while producing a
material that retains as many of the mechanical
properties of the original thermoplastic materials as
possible. The project boasts short cycle times and
net-shape manufacturing.
The collaboration includes several industrial
partners in the value chain, from material, manufac-
turing, design and application, including GKN Fokker,
Toray Advanced Composites, Cato Composite Inno-
vations (Rheden, Netherlands), Dutch Thermoplastic
Components (Almere, Netherlands) and Nido Recyc-
lingTechniek (Nijverdal, Netherlands).
The right material for the right job
So amid the din of excitement about these materials,
the question that arises is, have TPCs arrived? Tier 1
and Tier 2 aerospace suppliers are investing in ther-
moplastics. There is more interest and investment
from smaller and medium-size suppliers. Consor-
tiums like IRG CosiMo are working to advance process
technologies to achieve high-volume production.
“It’s the Trifecta,” says Mead, “OEMs are investing,
machinery folks are investing, the right material has
been developed. All of the components of the recipe
are coming together.”
In larger scope, what does all of this mean when it
comes to materials use on next-generation aircraft?
After all, there are numerous materials competing
for a spot on the aircraft of the future, and innovation
isn’t slowing down — thermoset composites continue
to evolve; aluminum and titanium will continue to
play a role.
“As airframers develop a qualification basis with
thermoplastics, they now have a choice,” says Unger.
“And that choice will be based upon selecting the
right material for a given application which meets the
production rate and cost requirements for the compo-
nent or structure in question. As you look at commer-
cial aviation going forward, what I believe you’ll see
airframers doing is using the right material for the right
job. If a material enables the most appropriate structure
for the least cost and meets program build rate require-
ments, it will win its way onto the airplane.”
Scott Francis, senior editor for CompositesWorld,
has worked in publishing and media since 2001.
He’s edited for numerous publications including
Writer’s Digest, HOW and Popular Woodworking.
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
HP-RTM for serial production of
cost-effective CFRP aerostructures
Merging automotive
process and tooling with
aerospace quality to
meet increasing
production rates.
By Ginger Gardiner / Senior Editor
48 JUNE 2019
» When resin transfer molding (RTM) began transitioning into
high-pressure RTM (HP-RTM) roughly a decade ago, it was mostly
lauded for automotive applications, reducing composite part cycle
times from hours to less than 2 minutes.
Less has been said about applying this Primary
aerostructures
technology to aerospace parts. The aircraft
in minutes via
industry has a long history with conven- HP-RTM
tional RTM, including its use to produce
CTC has demonstrated
thousands of carbon fiber-reinforced HP-RTM parts with
plastic (CFRP) fan blades and contain- 60-percent fiber volume
ment cases for commercial aircraft engines. and less than 2-percent
Airbus has even prototyped a 7-meter-long, voids, molded in 20
one-piece composite multispar flap for the minutes, such as this
1.5-meter-by-0.5-meter
Airbus A320 using RTM (see Learn More). CFRP rib, representing
But is it possible to transition this experi- possible aerospace
ence with hours-long processes into fully primary structures.
automated molding of composite aircraft Source | CTC
 HP-RTM for serial production

SPARTA
demonstrator
An illustration of the
SPARTA demonstrator
HP-RTM tooling.
Source | Airbus Helicopters

Auto-inspired tooling for SPARTA demonstrator

Working with Airbus Helicopters and KraussMaffei in the SPARTA project,
Alpex Technologies designed and built HP-RTM tooling using automotive best
practices, which was used to produce a demonstrator frame for the Airbus
A350 passenger door, currently manufactured by Airbus Helicopters using
low-pressure RTM. Source | Alpex Technologies

parts in minutes? Several key players say it is possible.
Traditional RTM, referred to here as LP-RTM for
clarity, typically uses injection pressures of 10-20 bars.
HP-RTM, on the other hand, uses injection pressures
of 30-120 bars.
“We began working with aerospace RTM processing
10 years ago via an EU-funded project to manufacture
fuselage frames,” says Bernhard Rittenschober, head
of research and development for Alpex Technolo-
gies (Mils, Austria), a supplier of innovative tooling
systems for serial composite parts production. “At
that time, predictions were that many parts for the
[Airbus] A350 would be made with RTM, but this did
not materialize.” Alpex, however, kept working on
the technology, and as a supplier to both the auto-
motive and aerospace industries, began to look at
how the processes used in these two industries could
be merged. “The idea was to use the [Hexcel] RTM6
epoxy resin qualified in aerospace, but with automo-
tive tooling best practices and an automated injection
system for lower cycle time,” Rittenschober explains.
The result was a research program from 2013-2015
called TAKE OFF, funded by the Austrian government,
that Alpex participated in with partners Airbus Heli-
copters (Donauworth, Germany facility), equipment
supplier KraussMaffei (Munich, Germany), testing
specialist Aerospace and Advanced Composites (AAC,
Wiener Neustadt, Austria) and resin supplier Hexcel
(Stamford, Conn., U.S.). The program demonstrated
that HP-RTM resulted in a 30 percent reduction in
cost for an A350 door frame and significant tech-
nology development, including use of a two-compo-
nent (2K) resin system, intelligent injection and cure
monitoring via in-mold sensors and the ability to

49
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

further reduce part cycle time. Alpex has continued currently used for A350 door frame production at
development and sees potential for this HP-RTM Airbus Helicopters. For the design and build of the
technology to help overcome current CFRP produc- HP-RTM tooling, it would apply a more automotive
tion issues. mindset. “Our goal was to enable automotive-type
Supporting this view, the Composites Technology automation in aerospace composite parts produc-
Center (CTC), a subsidiary of Airbus Operations tion,” says Rittenschober. “This is necessary if Airbus
GmbH, has also been developing automated RTM for is going to build a future A320 with more composite
a decade, first with LP-RTM and then transitioning parts and at a rate of 60 to 100 aircraft per month.”
to HP-RTM about five years ago. (CompositesWorld He continues, “We were coming from producing
noted CTC’s KraussMaffei HP-RTM machine and molds for BMW, which was actively trying to
development work during a 2016 tour of its facility. simplify its parts and processes to reduce cycle time,
See Learn More.) “HP-RTM solves the bottleneck of while Airbus was coming from previous aerospace
injection and curing due to its high-speed mixing, complexity. For example, when we started, Airbus
which allows using highly reactive resins,” explains Helicopters asked how many parts this mold will
Jan Schiller, CTC project leader have.” Note, the current
for production systems and lead LP-RTM door produc-
contact for RTM technologies. tion included complex
“Our goal was to enable
“We have developed a process multi-piece tools. “We
that produces somewhat
automotive-type explained that the HP-RTM
complex geometry parts automation in aerospace tool will just have one upper
sized 1-2 meters, meeting composite parts.” and one lower mold,” says
aerospace requirements Rittenschober.
(for example, 60 percent Thus, Alpex started with a
fiber volume and less simple mold design and then
than 2 percent voids) in a cycle time of 20 minutes.” added features to make processing more robust and
He adds that after visits and discussions with Airbus flexible — for example, sealing systems used for high-
suppliers last year, a number of parts were identi- volume automotive production. “Plus, we have all of
fied for transition to HP-RTM, enabling higher rate the sensors integrated into the mold,” he notes.
production for the A320 aircraft. “We are now devel-
oping specific processing for these and are working Preforms and process
this year to get them into serial production.” The preforms currently used for the A350 door frame
use woven material and require multiple debulking
HP-RTM A350 door frame steps, resulting in a three-day production cycle.
Alpex’s development was completed through the “We decided to use noncrimp fabric (NCF) instead,”
Austrian TAKE OFF program via a project called says Rittenschober. “This drops price and cycle time
SPARTA. “Airbus Helicopters picked the part,” recalls significantly. We also ended up demonstrating some
Rittenschober. “This door frame is what you see parts with the Hexcel-qualified woven preforms, but
as you walk into an A350 with the door open. It is we see a switch in the composites industry outside of
roughly 2 meters tall, 200-250 millimeters wide and aerospace, with development by SGL and others away
8-10 millimeters thick, with complex shape and from woven fabrics and into tapes and lower-cost
design features to meet the various requirements of forms like NCFs.”
the assembled door, which is the primary structure.” When asked about injection points and any issues
The A350 door comprises 14 parts made by Airbus with fiber washing, Rittenschober explains the
Helicopters in Donauworth, Germany, using LP-RTM. HP-RTM tool has only one injection point, but there is
The frame chosen for SPARTA is one of the door’s no fiber washing because the preform is clamped so
more challenging parts. “It is a good demonstration that it is fixed in the mold and very stable.
part because we can compare HP-RTM directly to Another key point is that Alpex chose to use a
standard aerospace LP-RTM,” adds Rittenschober. two-component (2K) resin system instead of the
Alpex designed and built the LP-RTM tooling one-component RTM6 currently used by Airbus

50 JUNE 2019
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 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

SIDE STORY

RTM tooling resource

Founded in 1995, Alpex Technologies has 70 employees in
Austria and an office in Brighton, Mich., U.S. It has designed
tooling for nearly every composites process, including
preforming, compression molding (SMC, prepreg and liquid/
wet compression molding), injection molding, infusion, RTM,
filament winding, trimming and assembly. “We work from
first concept through design, engineering and simulation to
installing the quality-proven tooling systems at our customer’s
location,” says Marcel Klautzsch, head of sales. The company’s
customer list includes aerospace and automotive OEMs and Tier
1 suppliers.
One notable reference is the 4-by-18-meter aluminum layup
tooling used to produce the resin-infused CFRP wing for the
MS-21 single-aisle jetliner. Alpex also produced the Invar tooling
system for preforming and integral curing of the MS-21 wing
stringers.
The company’s RTM development work began in 2008
with the EU-funded IMAC Pro project for industrial
manufacturing of CFRP profiles with Airbus, followed by
SARISTU (Smart Intelligent Aircraft Structures) and thermal
expansion RTM for A350 fuselage frames, also with Airbus.
Alpex also participated in MoveTech, an Austrian national
program with FACC (Ried im Innkreis), where it worked on
sensor-based manufacturing of the complex A330 center
hinge fitting using advanced RTM and a new automated
tooling concept that included electric sliders for molding
undercut geometry.
Alpex currently participates in Airbus’ Wing of Tomorrow
Programme, which is developing a CFRP wing optimized
for high aerodynamic and structural performance with low
recurring cost. The integrated wingbox will drastically cut
fasteners and assembly, using preformed dry fiber and
resin infusion. Three full-scale TRL6 wing demonstrators are
scheduled to be completed by the second quarter of 2021.

Tooling for infusion and

injection
Aluminum layup tooling for the resin-
infused CFRP wing on the MS-21 jetliner
(top) and a new automated RTM tooling
concept for the A330 spoiler hinge fitting
(above and right) illustrate Alpex’s experi-
ence and innovation.
Source | Alpex Technologies

52 JUNE 2019
 AREOSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Helicopters. Rittenschober asserts the 2K system can
be more reactive, which better suits HP-RTM, and
may save cost because it is not premixed and does
not require hazardous materials shipping. However, it
does require a higher temperature of 180°C. “This was
the most challenging part for us,” says Rittenschober,
“because we were more accustomed to processing at
120°C.”
KraussMaffei installed, at its lightweight tech
center in Munich, Germany, the finished tooling
in its RimStar Compact HP-RTM system with auto-
mated, high-pressure (up to 80 bar/1,100 psi) mix,
meter and injection. It then made 20 demonstrator
parts. Rittenschober describes the baseline process:
Inject at 80°C, ramp to 120°C, hold for one hour,
ramp to 180° and hold for a 90-minute cure, ramp
down (2°C/min.) and demold. “The injection only
takes 20 seconds,” he says, “but the total molding
cycle is about four hours.”
Cycle time and cost
The still-lengthy cure cycle for the SPARTA door frame
is driven by the Hexcel RTM6 resin formulation and
processing that is Airbus-qualified. “We were able to
achieve cure cycles of 30 minutes at 180°C with an
additional post-curing under vacuum afterward to
remove thermal stress and ensure mechanical proper-
ties,” notes Rittenschober, adding that the properties
were quite good, and comparable to the LP-RTM part.
“We showed that you can use the process and
automate production for higher part volumes,” says
Rittenschober. “You can inject and cure in the mold
and then post-cure out of the press.” He concedes
this requires extra sets of tools, but only a single
press and injection unit. “With this system, you can
reduce the part cost by €700, which enables you to
pay for the equipment easily with a production rate
of 500 to 1,000 parts/year, which is not even a very
high volume.”
CTC process development and
demonstrators
Tooling and process aside, the HP-RTM door project
also included innovative use of fiber format. “We
started with woven textiles already qualified by
Airbus and were very successful,” recalls Schiller.
“Then we continued with NCF and more innova-
tive textiles.” The latter included dry fiber placement
and interleafing with spread tow layers for increased
HP-RTM for serial production
toughness, but the latter presented issues with tight
packing of fibers and layers, causing poor perme-
ability and hindering resin infiltration. “There are
also developments to address this, such as NCF with
special fibers to improve permeability,” he adds.
Regarding pressures for HP-RTM, Schiller empha-
sizes that the decision to use the process was driven
more by mixing technology from the polyurethane
industry than by high process pressures. “We are
using HP-RTM just to get a good mixing of highly
reactive resins,” he explains. “There may be some
higher pressure in the mold, but this is a secondary
effect from fast injection. For automotive parts with
2-minute cycle times, they must infiltrate the dry
preform with resin much faster than we do. Our
15-minute cure time allows more time for resin infil-
tration, which also lowers pressure in the mold.”
Press tonnage, meanwhile, depends on part size.
“Making parts up to 2 meters in size works well (about
1,500 tons) but parts sized 4-6 meters require calcu-
lating the business case because the press investment
becomes very high,” says Schiller. CTC displayed a
1.5-meter-by-0.5-meter CFRP rib representing any
possible aerospace primary structure at JEC World in
2018. It will also receive a higher-tonnage press at the
end of 2019.
2K resins and sensor-based QA
Schiller observes that all previous RTM aircraft
structures have only used 1K systems mixed by the
supplier, who then certifies the mixture and bears the
liability for making sure the resin meets qualification
requirements. “Now we are considering 2K systems,
but the challenge is to ensure the mixing quality,” he
explains. Premixed 1K systems require cold shipment
and storage to prevent reaction until part processing.
Thus, advantages of 2K systems include elimination
of this expense as well as higher reactivity for faster
processing. One issue, however, is that quality assur-
ance (QA) will transfer from the resin supplier to the
parts manufacturer. “This QA requires detection of
the mixing ratio and the mixed resin quality. Both are
needed for Airbus qualification of a new material. So,
this means measurements of the two components just
prior to mixing and of the resin after mixing. Today,
we only have sensors before the mix head, showing
how much resin and how much hardener are metered
into the mix. This is not enough for qualification.”
Alpex, meanwhile, is working to develop an
53
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
inline quality system to provide the verification of
100-percent properly mixed resin that Airbus requires.
“We have worked with Netzsch in-mold sensors from
the beginning of this development,” notes Ritten-
schober. “Now that Netzsch is partnered with Kistler,
new technology is available. We can monitor tempera-
ture, pressure and the cure of the resin from a single
sensor, which we include in the mold.”
“Alpex says to use in-mold sensors, and the mix/
injection equipment suppliers say the sensors should
be in their systems,” says Schiller. “Both are right.”
But he notes there also is a need for improvement
in the latter. “In automotive HP-RTM, the resin mix
ratio is measured over the complete process, so it’s
an average,” Schiller explains. “However, I need this
Read this article online |
short.compositesworld.com/HPRTMaero
Read more about the rise of HP-RTM |
short.compositesworld.com/riseHPRTM
Read about Airbus’ use of RTM for multispar flaps |
short.compositesworld.com/AirbusRTM
See CW’s plant tour of the CTC |
short.compositesworld.com/tour_CTC
measurement at every discrete point during the
process, so that I know that the mix ratio is always
correct, even for the last half of a second during injec-
tion. We need better time resolution in the measuring
systems.” Schiller suggests sensors will probably be
needed before the mix head, inside the mix head
and in the mold. “We are working on this QA devel-
opment in parallel to evaluating 2K resins in aero-
space applications, and together with the machine
suppliers, we have identified sensor systems which
promise sufficient resolution. They will be validated
within this year.”
Alpex is also trialing a new hybrid multifunc-
tional piezoelectric sensor developed by Aerospace
& Advanced Composites (AAC, Wiener Neustadt,
Austria). Placed on the RTM mold, it acts as a pressure
sensor to monitor the resin flow front in the mold.
Once the preform is impregnated by the resin and
curing starts, change in the impedance spectrum
is used by the sensor to determine degree of cure.
Once cure is complete, the piezoelectric sensors are
co-cured on the surface of the part to be used for
54 JUNE 2019
structural health monitoring either in passive mode
as acoustic emission sensors or in active mode using
guided ultrasonic waves. They have been demon-
strated for monitoring of impact and damage on
finished parts.
Note that this process data can be analyzed by
Industry 4.0 intelligent production systems to identify
routes for further improvements in quality and effi-
ciency. This process data also can be logged for each
part’s digital twin.
Future potential
Rittenschober says the only real hurdle for the
HP-RTM technology is certification: “We are demon-
strating with Airbus Helicopters that this process can
work, but someone has to certify it.” Schiller agrees
that it’s always a hurdle to find who will be first, but
he has also calculated business cases for a lot of parts
over the last year. “For 200 parts per year, it doesn’t
make sense. However, for parts on the A320, for
example, it becomes attractive. Every month, we see a
higher target rate for the A320 program. A lot of these
parts were engineered in the 1980s and are produced
manually, so they could easily be made much more
efficient with HP-RTM.”
With CTC-demonstrated part cycle times of 20
minutes, HP-RTM could also be attractive for the
electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft
market, where production volumes of 5,000 aircraft
per year have been suggested as an upper limit by air
taxi manufacturer UBER.
Alpex will continue to develop a range of RTM
advancements, says Rittenschober. “We believe
HP-RTM has real potential to help solve some of the
issues with more cost-effective, industrialized produc-
tion of CFRP aerostructures.” Schiller agrees, noting
that for many of the targeted A320 applications, there
are numerous CFRP parts per shipset. “Thus, the
benefit of a more efficient process starts to accumu-
late. If we can get the first application in production,
then there will be others.”
CW senior editor Ginger Gardiner has an
engineering/materials background and more
than 20 years of experience in the composites
industry. ginger@compositesworld.com
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

Spirit AeroSystems invests in qualification

program with Toray prepreg
The world’s largest aerospace tier supplier seizes the
opportunity to develop its own allowables for a carbon
fiber prepreg, setting an important precedent.

By Jeff Sloan / Editor-in-Chief

Focus on
AFP/ATL
Spirit AeroSystems’
qualification program for
T1100/3960 carbon fiber
prepreg focused on auto-
mated fiber placement
(AFP) and automated
tape laying (ATL).
Source | Spirit AeroSystems

» Qualification of composite materials — particularly prepregs for aerospace applica-

tions — traditionally has been so time-consuming and expensive that its funding usually
comes from one of the aerospace primes (Boeing or Airbus) or an independent labora-
tory, such as the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) at Wichita State Univer-
sity (Wichita, Kan., U.S.).
When a prime funds a material qualification, allowables are usually developed for a
specific application, but this can restrict or hinder the utility of the data beyond the appli-
cation for which it was developed. A lab, such as NIAR, using the NCAMP process, can
build an approved test plan followed by the appropriate specifications and test reports to
deliver material allowables that are useful and helpful to the aviation industry. However,
lacking infinite resources, NIAR cannot qualify every prepreg brought to market. This
causes the industry to pick and choose the most significant material systems for NCAMP
inclusion, though these may not always cover all needs of the aviation industry partners,
which range from large OEMs to smaller suppliers.
Spirit AeroSystems (Wichita), the world’s largest Tier 1 aerospace supplier, and arguably

56 JUNE 2019

the world’s largest fabricator of aerospace composites,
has followed these traditional models like the rest of the
composites world. It has been particularly tied to quali-
fication data derived from its customers, which include
Boeing, Airbus and other OEMs.
Chris Boshers, director of engineering, strategic
programs, at Spirit AeroSystems, reviewed the materials
market and recognized two years ago that the current
models do not serve the entire aerospace composites
market satisfactorily. In particular, says Boshers, there
is a category of aircraft manufacturers that lack the
resources to fund qualification efforts of their own, but
that also find the available qualified materials through
processes such as NCAMP fall short of their material
qualification needs in terms of choices.
To fill this gap, says Boshers, Spirit AeroSystems
decided to self-fund the qualification of a new prepreg,
and in doing so, hopes to meet the needs of current
and potential customers who cannot afford their own
qualification programs. In the process, the company
aims to begin building a new business niche. “We’re
investing in something that we think can help our
customers, suppliers and Spirit,” Bosher says.
The material Spirit has qualified is T1100/3960,
an intermediate modulus aerospace prepreg
manufactured by Toray Composite Materials
America Inc. (Tacoma, Wash., U.S.) and introduced
to the market in 2017. Boshers says this prepreg
was chosen because it offers 20 percent greater
stiffness than its widely used predecessor — Toray’s
T800S/3900 prepreg — but without any of the strength
degradation that normally accompanies a boost in
stiffness. This combination, says Boshers, makes the
material particularly well-suited for next-generation
aerostructures.
Spirit contracted with NIAR to do the qualification,
which was conducted over the last two years. Boshers
says Spirit evaluated producibility of the prepreg
exclusively for automated fiber placement (AFP)
processes; the allowables data does not cover hand
layup at this time, but there is an equivalency test
plan in the works to answer this question. Spirit,
in the process of developing the allowables data,
fabricated a large part that Boshers says demonstrates
the capabilities of the material in a range of potential
applications, including fuselage, wing and tail
structures. Boshers singled out the T1100/3960’s easy
steerability as a significant feature of the prepreg.
According to Eric Hein, senior director of R&T
at Spirit AeroSystems, an investment in NCAMP to
Qualifying prepreg
Prepreg steerability
Spirit AeroSystems’ work to develop allowables for Toray’s
T1100/3960 carbon fiber prepreg revealed the material’s steer-
ability, visible in this image. Source | Spirit AeroSystems
develop processes for qualification of future material
systems that are designed for the manufacturing and
deployment of tomorrow’s aircraft is essential —
not only for the future of Spirit but the future of the
aviation industry as a whole.
Jeff Cross, director, aerospace business
development at Toray, says T1100G/3690 prepreg
features a new fiber introduced by Toray in 2017.
Toray’s T1100 family of fibers offers improved tensile
and modulus strength properties as compared to
legacy IM fibers, creating a new class of fiber called
IM+. The fiber is manufactured in Toray’s Decatur,
Ala., carbon fiber production facility; the T1100/3960
prepreg is produced in its Tacoma plant. As the
name implies, it is designed to fill the modulus
gap between intermediate modulus (IM) and high
modulus (HM) fiber. Cross notes that Toray is aiming
the prepreg toward high-performance applications,
including vertical lift airframes and rotor components,
space launch vehicles and weight-critical defense
platforms. Cross says the material’s increased
modulus can provide advantages to designers of next-
generation commercial airfoils who desire minimum
thickness cord sections and longer wingspans.
Jeff Sloan is editor-in-chief of
CompositesWorld, and has been engaged in
plastics- and composites-industry journalism
for 24 years. jeff@compositesworld.com
57
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Fiber sizing, tow spreading and
the quest for encapsulation
Fiber sizing is easily overlooked by composites fabricators, but it
will be increasingly important to fiber performance optimization.
By Jeff Sloan / Editor-in-Chief
» Fiber sizing is easily overlooked in composites
manufacturing because it is typically applied by the
fiber manufacturer using tightly controlled chemistry.
Further, sizing is a material that is most noticeable by
the processing and performance headaches that arise
in its absence.
As resins and fibers evolve, however, sizing is likely
to move closer to the top of the composites industry’s
collective mind. Dr. Nagesh Potluri, group technology
director at sizing specialist Michelman (Cincinnati,
Ohio, U.S.), says the chemical and physical complexities
surrounding fiber sizing should not be underestimated.
Michelman manufactures sizing optimized for use
with polypropylene (PP), polyamide (PA), polycar-
bonate (PC), polyurethane (PU) and epoxy polymers.
Continuous fibers used with high-performance
thermoplastics, like PEKK, PAEK and PEEK, typi-
cally go unsized, mainly because high temperatures
make sizing use challenging. Michelman, however,
is working on technologies that will enable higher-
performing thermoplastic sizing.
This work has led to another, related, area of
interest: fiber spreading. Potluri says carbon fiber
tows, when used to make unidirectional tapes, must
first be spread to flatten out and align the filaments.
58 JUNE 2019
Sized and unsized
The micrograph on the left shows sized fiber with good encap-
sulation. The micrograph on the right shows unsized fiber and
suboptimal encapsulation. Source | Michelman
Generally, carbon fibers of 3-12K tow are relatively
easy to spread, while larger tows are more cumber-
some and difficult to spread, primarily because of
fiber-to-fiber friction. Potluri argues that a well-spread
tow facilitates more even sizing distribution, which, in
turn, promotes better resin/fiber adhesion.
“The weakest link in a composite is the fiber-matrix
interaction,” Potluri says. “That’s why we like high
fiber volumes. For this reason, you want the matrix to
impregnate the interstitial spaces between fibers and
maximize the mechanical properties embedded in the
fibers. Effective spreading does that.”
In a typical carbon fiber fabric, he says, not all fila-
ments interact with, or are encapsulated by, the matrix
resin. Michelman is working on novel chemistry sizing
candidates and application processes to minimize
fiber-to-fiber friction and ease spreading, and improve
fiber/matrix interactions. “If we do that,” Potluri says,
“we would essentially reach theoretical maximum fiber
performance values in a composite.”
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I N PA RT N E R S H I P W I T H :
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
Automated, in-situ inspection a
necessity for next-gen aerospace
Inline inspection technologies continue to evolve with the
aim of providing faster and more accurate part inspection.
By Scott Francis / Senior Editor
» It may go without saying, but the continued
viability of composites in commercial aircraft
programs depends on reducing costs and improving
production rates. Automation of production
processes, such as automated fiber placement (AFP)
and automated tape laying (ATL), improves speed
and efficiency, but the need for careful, often manual,
visual inspection has been a common time constraint
in the industry. Just how much time is added to
the overall production time by manual inspection?
Accounts vary from 30 percent on the low end to more
than 60 percent, as reported in a paper presented
several years ago by Robert Harper of Fives Cincin-
nati (Hebron, Ky., U.S.) and Allen Halbritter of Boeing
(Chicago, Ill., U.S.). So, though variable, the time
penalty is significant.
In recent years, numerous companies have been
working to develop automated inspection technolo-
gies that can keep up with automated production.
Such efforts include inspection systems from compa-
nies like Electroimpact Inc. (Mukilteo, Wash., U.S.),
Danobat Composites (Elgoibar, Spain), Apodius
(Aachen, Germany), and Fives.
60 JUNE 2019
Integrated for
inspection
This Fives Viper automated
fiber placement machine,
integrated with NRC profiling
technology, enables high-
quality, real-time, in-process
inspection for the aerospace
industry.
Source | National Research Council
Canada
Inspecting next-generation wing panels
Electroimpact’s automated inspection system enables
inspection of wing panel structures for Boeing’s 777X.
It consists of three LASERVISION projector units
from Aligned Vision (Chelmsford, Mass., U.S.), each
equipped with a high-resolution camera and a laser
projector. The units each work with a laser profilom-
eter — a small laser that projects a line onto the work
surface — mounted on the AFP machine head. The
three elements (laser, camera, profilometer) provide
data to a user interface supported by computer
software algorithms. (See Learn More.)
Automating inspection of dry material
placement
Meanwhile, Danobat Composites has been working to
develop two types of technology and software systems
to support automated process inspection for its auto-
mated dry material placement (ADMP) machines. The
first uses a laser profilometer, or LLT (laser line trian-
gulation) sensor, to map the edges of the dry materials
during lay-down and detect whether fabric positions
are within specified tolerances. The second method
 Automated, in-situ inspection

involves a combination of LLT sensing and photo-

metric scans with camera sensors.

Measuring fiber orientation

Apodius, a subsidiary of Hexagon Manufacturing
Intelligence (North Kingstown, R.I., U.S.), has devel-
oped successive iterations of its Apodius Vision
System. The optical system for fiber orientation
measurement and defect detection allows up to
three fiber orientations to be detected, measured
and analyzed. Fiber orientation can be measured to
0.1-degree resolution by evaluating the recorded raw
image data of the surface texture compared to the
textile’s actual design, including woven, noncrimp
and braided fabrics. The system enables statistical
process control (SPC) for the release of preforms into
production (See Learn More).

AFP head from Electroimpact

Next-generation AFP surface profile
measurement Automated fiber placement (AFP) head from Electroimpact.
Recently, the National Research Council of Canada Photo | Scott Francis

(NRC, Ottawa, Canada) and Fives joined forces

to develop an advanced profilometer for material
placement aimed at providing faster and more
accurate part inspection.
According to Ken Wright, chief technology officer
at Fives, the company’s In-Process Inspection (IPI)
technology is a derivative of infrared interferometry
— an optical technology that uses infrared light waves
to measure distance. Wright says the profilometer
shows considerable advantages over existing
inspection technologies used for the same purpose.
The new profilometer is not dependent on the
angle of the surface and is said to be more robust
in ambient light conditions. The system also rides
along with the AFP head and is thus able to access
more confined spaces. In tests conducted since late
2017 on NRC’s Cincinnati Viper 4000 AFP, located at
STELIA Aerospace-North America (Mirabel, Quebec,
Canada), the new profilometer has reportedly
demonstrated improved results over LLT.
The sensor is said to provide real-time defect
measurement and real-time tow placement
measurement, and it works with a range of composite
material types. It is reportedly capable of reducing
processing time by up to 30 percent compared to layup
operations using manual inspection.
NRC holds the basis patent for the next-generation
profilometer and has licensed it exclusively to Fives
for composites manufacturing applications. Fives has
begun the final testing stage with customers and expects
to commercialize the technology before the end of 2019.
What’s next?
Next-generation commercial aircraft programs —
with some possibly targeting build volumes of 100
per month — obviously cannot rely on manual
inspection of composite parts and structures to meet
rate requirements. Given this, automated inspection
has become a necessity and the aerocomposites
supply chain has clearly gotten the message that old
technologies will not suffice.

Read more about Electroimpact’s system | short.

compositesworld.com/AutoInspEI Scott Francis, senior editor for CompositesWorld,
has worked in publishing and media since 2001.
Read more about Danobat’s and Apodius’s technologies |
He’s edited for numerous publications including
short.compositesworld.com/AutoInsp2
Writer’s Digest, HOW and Popular Woodworking.

61
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT

Big additive machines tackle large molds

In commercial aerocomposites fabrication, molds

reign supreme, but they are expensive. Large-format
additive manufacturing systems are poised to make
production-ready molds quickly and affordably.

By Jeff Sloan /
» Fabrication of large aerostructures using composite materials typically requires
a mold made with a metallic material with a low coefficient of thermal expan-
Editor-in-Chief
sion (CTE) so as to minimize distortion of the part during autoclave cure. Invar
is, understandably, the material of choice in aerospace manufacturing, thanks
mainly to a CTE of about 1.0 × 10-6 K-1. Such dimensional stability comes at a
price, however. Invar used for composites fabrication currently runs about $13/kg
(compared to about $1/kg for carbon steel).
At this price, material must be used conservatively, and only for the manu-
facture of tools that will be used to fabricate production parts and structures.
There is, however, much developmental manu-
facturing activity that takes place before that
production tool is created. Thus there is a Large-format additive
demand for a low-cost, autoclave-capable manufacturing
material with short-run durability for proto- One of the most critical aspects of
typing and low-rate production applications. large-format additive manufac-
Large-format additive manufacturing (AM) is in turing is to develop an effective
bond from layer to layer. This photo
a position to fill that need.
shows the Ingersoll system, which
The principle of large-format AM is simple: Use uses localized heating to promote
a robot- or gantry-mounted extruder to lay down bead-to-bead adhesion.
beads (about 0.5-inch thick) of chopped carbon Source | Ingersoll Machine Tools

62 JUNE 2019
 Large-format additive for molds

fiber-reinforced thermoplastic polymer

on a horizontal surface to incremen-
tally build up a part. Polymer typically
is ABS, but can also be PPS or PESU;
the carbon fiber percentage is usually
about 20 percent. Material placement
is guided by CAD data from the part
design, with adjustments factored in
for resin cooling and finishing require-
ments. The final structure is typically
larger than net shape, which neces-
sitates subsequent machining to final
dimensions. The finished part can
then be coated and sealed to create a
smooth, hard surface that is amenable
to prepreg or dry fiber layup.
With molds made via large-format
AM, says Curtis Goffinski, principle
technologist at Ingersoll Machine
Tools (Rockford, Ill., U.S.), working on
development of the company’s Master- AM for 777X
Print large-format additive manufac- Thermwood worked with Boeing to build this demonstrator tool for the 777X. It was
turing/CNC system, it is reasonable to fabricated using large-format additive manufacturing and includes vertical bead
expect durability of 20-30 cure cycles placement. Source | Thermwood
before the tool must be rehabilitated
— enough for prototyping programs
or short-run manufacturing. With improvements in exchangeable with a 5-axis milling head. Ingersoll
coating materials and development of mold repair wants to scale up this technology so that its structures
standards, says Goffinski, “we expect to see 100-200 have 8 or 10 meters between columns, as well as to
cycles per mold.” integrate existing Ingersoll technologies as modular
Jason Susnjara, vice president of manufacturing options, including automated fiber and tape place-
at Thermwood (Dale, Ind., U.S.), which manufac- ment, an ultrasonic knife and in-situ inspection.
tures the Large Scale Additive Manufacturing (LSAM) Thermwood’s LSAM, introduced in 2017, offers a
machine, says large-format AM has much poten- working envelope 10 feet wide and 20 to 100 feet long.
tial, but also requires much more development to It also features integrated additive and subtractive
optimize and industrialize it for everyday aerospace capabilities, with each located on a separate gantry.
use. Challenges, he says, range from performance of In the Thermwood system, 60 percent of polymer heat
the thermoplastic polymer to layer-to-layer (z-direc- is generated by a heated barrel, not shear heat from
tion) bonding to vacuum integrity. the extruder screw, which the company says provides
What makes a large-format machine large? Inger- more even heating. In addition, says Susnjara, the
soll has built what Goffinski says is a demonstra- system can print horizontally or vertically, and
tion version of its mid-class MasterPrint system, features a melt pump to help maintain polymer bead
which features a dual-column gantry with more consistency. LSAM uses interchangeable melt cores
than 4 meters between columns, a 12-meter x-axis, (extruder and nozzle combination) to adjust polymer
a 4.5-meter y-axis, a 4-by-12-meter work area, and output. The standard core is 40 millimeters wide and
localized and integrated Siemens CNC controls. The has a maximum output of 210 lb/hr. The new 60-milli-
extruder, with throughput up to 500 lb/hr., can print meter core offers outputs up to 580 lb/hr.
on non-horizontal surfaces and is automatically Cincinnati Inc. (Harrison, Ohio, U.S.) has three

63
 AEROSPACE SUPPLEMENT
models of its Big Area Additive Manufacturing
(BAAM) machine, with lengths of 7.8-10.8 meters,
widths of 3.6-3.8 meters and heights of 4.3-5 meters.
Workspace ranges from 3.5-6 meters on the x-axis and
1.7-2.3 meters on the y-axis. The extruder’s maximum
feed rate is 80 lb/hr.; extruder nozzle diameter options
are 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 inch. BAAM does not offer inte-
grated finishing capabilities.
Large-format AM challenges
The toughest nut to crack for large-format AM, says
Susnjara, is layer-to-layer bonding. As each layer of
material is placed, it begins to cool and harden. By
the time the subsequent layer of
plastic bead is placed atop the
layer below it, the bottom layer
Large-format AM still has a
may be too cool to facilitate a
strong bond, which can lead few years of standardization
to structural weakness. As and industrialization ahead
a result, timing of bead of it to achieve wider use.
placement must be care-
fully managed to stay
within specific tempera-
ture windows. “Time governs the process,” he says. “If
any material is too hot, then it can sag. Too cool and it tance and use. To this end, Cincinnati Inc. is working
won’t bond right. There is definitely a sweet spot.”
“Inter-layer adhesion is critical,” says Goffinski.
“We are trying to predict the physics more effec-
tively.” Cincinnati Inc. also notes that polymer cooling
is anisotropic — that is, different polymers cool at
different rates in different directions. Ingersoll is
tackling this with simulation software that is helping
the company understand and anticipate polymer
behavior, depending on the size of the mold, polymer
type and other factors. Thermwood, says Susnjara, is
working on directed heating technology that allows
LSAM to manage thermal properties in a discrete,
specific region of material.
Vacuum integrity of a printed mold is also a neces-
sity, whether the tool is destined for autoclave or out-
of-autoclave (OOA) use. Achieving vacuum integrity
requires fabrication of a void-free surface. This is typi-
cally done by first placing the right amount of bead
in the right place, and then sanding or machining
the surface of the finished part and coating it with a
sealant. Goffinski says Ingersoll expects that about
one-third of the bead width of a printed mold will be
removed during machining. This leaves two-thirds of
64 JUNE 2019
the bead behind to provide the ultimate strength of
the mold. Some molds, he notes, may require a wall
more than a bead thick, depending on finite element
analysis and design factors. “You do not want to blow
through the first bead,” he says.
Thermwood, says Susnjara, has developed patented
bead-placement technology that uses a pressure
wheel to compress each bead layer into the bead
layer below it, thereby creating a void-free, vacuum-
ready mold surface without sanding or sealing. A test
mold printed by Thermwood, says Susnjara, achieved
a vacuum of 28 inHg. Further, almost two hours
later, after the vacuum line had been removed, total
vacuum had dropped
only 1 inHg, to 27 inHg.
Still, achieving the
smooth finish required
of a mold-release surface
demands some sort of post-
process sanding.
Susnjara and Goffinski say
that large-format AM still has a
few years of standardization and
industrialization ahead of it to achieve wider accep-
with the National Institute for Aviation Research
(NIAR) at Wichita State University (Wichita, Kan.,
U.S.) to develop machine and process standards for
large-format AM.
Goffinski points to several large-format AM tech-
nologies and parameters that need work, including
in-autoclave deformation prediction, machine
programming/intelligence, steering and path
planning, larger and faster extruders, warpage predic-
tion, material and machine benchmarking for quality
and accuracy, polymer chemistry improvements
and integration of continuous fiber reinforcements.
Susnjara says the top priorities for Thermwood are
polymer CTE prediction, larger extruder heads, better
management of polymer heat cycles and, of course,
reduced cost.
Jeff Sloan is editor-in-chief of
CompositesWorld, and has been engaged in
plastics- and composites-industry journalism
for 24 years. jeff@compositesworld.com
 Verisurf Is All You Need

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Let us show you the difference, in your shop, with your
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 NEW PRODUCTS
New Products
Source | NCCS Corp.
» PROCESS CONTROL SYSTEMS & SOFTWARE
CAM add-on makes bulk material
removal more efficient
NCCS Corp. (Irvine, Calif., U.S.) has developed an add-on
module to NCL with VoluMill, its multi-axis machining
software used in the aerospace, automotive and turbo-
machinery industries, to enable high-speed bulk material
removal. The add-on is said to shorten cycle times over
traditional milling with less machine wear and better tool life.
For open shapes, the programmer can cut any
combination of part/stock boundaries; all open edges are
fully leveraged for efficient machining and to minimize
plunging into the material.
Intelligent slot and side milling options comprise
another feature. For softer metals, the software provides
the fastest possible cycle time and intelligently selects
slot milling or side milling to maximize the material
removal rate. Feed rates and axial depths of cut are
automatically adjusted in slot milling to maintain a
constant material removal rate. This can be overridden by
the programmer. For harder materials, users can configure
side milling over the entire tool path to avoid burying the
cutter. The software behaves similarly to make small-
pocket machining more efficient.
The software provides high-feed repositioning with
floor clearance, taking advantage of the machine’s
capabilities in order to move the tool as safely and as
quickly as possible when not engaged in material. It
ensures that the tool clears the floor by a small amount
when repositioning at the highest possible speed without
dragging it across an already-machined floor.
With automatic feed adjustment, the programmer
can maintain a more consistent load on the cutting tool
with no feed rate optimizer needed. VoluMill tool paths
include precise and automatic feed rate optimization, the
company says. nccs.com
66 JUNE 2019
Source | LAP Laser
» PROCESS CONTROL SYSTEMS & SOFTWARE
Laser-based camera system for
composites fabrication
LAP Laser (Lüneberg, Germany) has introduced the
DTEC-PRO camera system, a laser-based ply-placement
verification system designed to increase efficiency in
composites
manufacturing
for aerospace
applications.
The company
says its DTEC-PRO
reduces the
calibration time Source | LAP Laser
for the proven CAD-PRO laser from minutes to seconds.
With a combination of ring flash and infrared camera,
DTEC-PRO detects reflective targets and sends their
position to the PRO-SOFT software. Workpieces known to
the system are identified and automatically calibrated for
a substantially faster process in manual composite layup.
According to LAP, companies with mobile applications
can benefit from the system’s flexibility. Regardless of
whether the workpiece or the camera are moved, the laser
projection is immediately shifted into the correct position.
PRO-SOFT control software supports the “Place & Start”
approach: the DTEC-PRO camera function is supported
by all current and future PRO-SOFT 5.1 software versions.
For existing installations with LAP laser projectors, users
can continue to use the interface they are familiar with. A
software update is all that is required.
The company also has introduced its new CAD-PRO
Compact, a smaller version of the established CAD-PRO
product. Compared to the CAD-PRO, the the CAD-PRO
Compact has no fan and light weight. With dimensions
of 24 cm × 11 cm × 11 cm, and a weight of 2.8 kg, the
CAD-PRO Compact fits in many workspaces.
lap-laser.com
 NEW PRODUCTS
» MILLING & MACHINING
Face milling inserts reduce cycle
times, ensure process security
Seco Tools (Troy, Mich., U.S.) has introduced larger
LP09 inserts for its HighFeed 2 cutter bodies to
eliminate long face milling cycle times and to ensure
process security. The inserts are designed for high-
feed milling operations in challenging workpieces
often found in the mold and die, aerospace, and oil
and gas industries.
Source | Seco Tools
Extending the existing HighFeed 2 milling family,
the new LP09 inserts combine higher insert corner
strength with dual cutting edges. The face milling
cutter bodies feature reinforced cores and more
teeth per diameter for increased feed rates and
faster material removal rates. During high-feed
milling, the optimized flutes of the cutter bodies are
said to evacuate chips efficiently.
The rectangular shape of the inserts, along with
the close-pitched cutter bodies, help to extend
tool life beyond that of square inserts. Cutter body
pockets ensure consistent and precise insert posi-
tioning or seating when indexing, and high-strength
screw clamping holds the inserts securely in place.
The company’s positive inserts are available in a
full range of chipbreakers, including MD15, M13 and
ME08. HighFeed 2 cutter bodies range in size from
1.250" to 4.00" and from 25 to 100 mm.
secotools.com/us
68 JUNE 2019
Source | Mikrosam
» AUTOMATION & ROBOTICS
Tool-less multi-robot tape
placement system
Mikrosam (Prilep, Macedonia) has introduced an automated
process for fabrication of thermoplastic composites without
the use of molds or tools. A research project between
Mikrosam, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.
(GA-ASI, San Diego, Calif., U.S.) and Composite Automation
LLC (Cape Coral, Fla., U.S.), has resulted in the tool-less
in-situ consolidation for thermoplastics.
Mikrosam used its advanced systems for automated
fiber placement (AFP) and automated tape layup (ATL)
to create an integrated manufacturing cell with dual
robots working in tandem: one robot lays up thermo-
plastic unidirectional (UD) tape, another robot acts as a
tool opposite the placement head. The movements of the
robots are said to be precise and coordinated to obtain
spatial 3D in-situ consolidation across multiple layers.
The system is integrated with MikroPlace, Mikrosam’s
simulation, control and automation software, and
MikroAutomate, software which enables multiple robots
to work as a single cell to produce a composite part. With
this integration, Mikrosam says that it overcame technical
challenges to producing 3D composite parts without
additional need for an autoclave. The material placed in space
can be held together by a metal frame on one or both ends,
depending on the desired final shape.
The patent-pending, multi-robot 3D printing system
leverages Mikrosam’s advances in producing in-situ
consolidated thermoplastic parts over the last several
years. The AFP and ATL systems from Mikrosam include a
laser heating source with precise temperature and angle
control as well as a closed-loop feedback with thermal
models. Another feature is a multi-material AFP head
capable of uni- and bi-directional placement on open 3D
shapes and closed mandrel surfaces such as pipes and
vessels. Simple spool change and replacement of the
laser with an infrared heating source are said to reduce
the time it takes to switch materials and technology on a
single AFP head. mikrosam.com
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 NEW PRODUCTS
» NONWOVENS
Microfiber support veils
Technical Fibre Products (TFP, Burneside, U.K.) has
launched its range of next-generation surfacing and
adhesive support veils, designed to offer superior
flexibility and surface smoothness, and to supple-
ment the company’s current Optiveil materials.
The next-generation veils are manufactured
from a range of fiber types, including micro
denier polyester and Kuraray’s WRAMP
fiber (a polyester-polyamide hybrid). These
microfibers have a finer diameter than TFP’s
standard polyester products, measuring 4 m and 5 m
compared to 12 m and 7 m, respectively. This means
there are significantly more fibers per gram of material
— nearly 18 million fibers, vs. 2 million in TFP’s standard
polyester nonwovens. This is said to produce a different,
closer pore structure with a higher surface area and to
ultimately convey increased flexibility to the nonwoven
and enhance its conformability to more complex shapes
during composites manufacturing. TFP also says the
pore structure refinement improves the surface smooth-
ness and ease of processing; it also is said to minimize
micro-porosity and microcracking.
TFP expects that the increased surface smoothness
» THERMOSET RESINS & ADHESIVE SYSTEMS
Epoxy-based film for prepregs
Solvay Composite Materials (Alpharetta, Ga., U.S.) has
developed FusePly, an epoxy-based film that is designed
to co-cure with a prepreg and provide a chemically active
surface that reacts with functional groups in adhesives to
create a covalently bonded structure. According to Solvay,
FusePly’s chemically active surface differentiates it from
traditional composite surface preparations, like peel ply
and plasma treatment, which provide mechanical bonding
only. FusePly, which Solvay believes will allow aerospace
OEMs and fabricators to create reliable bonds and reduce
mechanical fastener use, is compatible with 149-177°C
amine-cured epoxy prepregs and is designed specifically
for secondary or co-bond applications such as stringer-to-
skin bonding. It can be processed in or out of the auto-
clave, is not affected by moisture or out time, and is said to
have no mixed-mode failure. Solvay says that many OEMs
are in the process of determining suitable applications for
this technology. solvay.com
70 JUNE 2019
Source |TFP
of these thermoplastic veils makes them even more
suitable for use as adhesive carrier or support veils, an
already popular application for TFP’s Optiveil materials.
The fiber structure reportedly has been optimized to
promote adhesive wet-out, ensuring a defined and
consistent film thickness, as well as improving the
resilience and handling of the final product.
TFP’s nonwovens are used in a range of composites
applications ranging from aerospace and automotive
to energy, transportation and sporting goods, fulfilling
requirements for surfacing, electrical conductivity, EMI
shielding, abrasion and corrosion resistance; they are
also used to increase fracture toughness or act as an
adhesive carrier. tfpglobal.com
» THERMOSET RESINS & ADHESIVE SYSTEMS
Self-extinguishing epoxy resin;
Hexion (Columbus, Ohio, U.S.) has introduced Epon
FlameX, a halogen-free, non-particulate, non-additive
chemistry for epoxies that provides strong fire/
smoke/toxicity (FST) performance in aerospace, rail
and marine interiors applications. It’s comprised of
EPON FlameX Resin 9600 cured with EPIKURE FlameX
Curing Agent 9700. This self-extinguishing resin
meets the following standards: 60-second vertical
burn FAR25.853(a); smoke toxicity BSS7239; smoke
density BSS7238. Epon FlameX can be used with resin
transfer molding (RTM), infusion, filament winding and
prepreg-based processes. It cures at 150°C and offers
glass transition temperatures of 100°C (entry level),
130°C (intermediate level) and 190°C (advanced).
hexion.com
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