From the Sector

Hexcel is exhibiting at the Aero India show for the sixth time, continuing to support customers in the Indian subcontinent and throughout Asia. This year’s show takes place in Bangalore from February 20-24 (Stand AB2.5D, Hall AB) to promote a range of carbon fibers and composites that are benefiting Indian aerospace manufacturers for commercial aircraft, helicopters and space programs.

To coincide with the show, Hexcel is announcing the opening of its new sales office, Hexcel Composites India LLP. The office is located in Bangalore and will be fully operational in March 2019. Mr Vijay Sharma, Sales Manager, and Mr Ram Kumar, Technical Representative, will manage the sales activities and support key customers in the region.

Hexcel has supplied carbon and glass fiber fabrics, prepregs, honeycombs and adhesives to Indian aerospace companies for more than 28 years, including Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), National Aerospace Lab (NAL), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and TATA Advanced Materials.

Hexcel’s high strength and intermediate modulus carbon fiber range has been augmented by the launch of HexTow® HM63, a high modulus carbon fiber that has the highest tensile strength of any existing HM fiber. HexTow® HM63 provides outstanding translation of fiber properties in a composite, including superior inter-laminar shear and compression shear strength. HexTow® HM63 is therefore ideal for any high stiffness and strength-critical applications including space, satellites, UAV, commercial aerospace and helicopters.

CHOMARAT North America has just been awarded AS 9100 certification. CHOMARAT Group’s US facility that specializes in Advanced Composites reinforcements is located in Williamston, South Carolina. The new certification covers aerospace quality management systems and follows the Group’s development strategy relative to quality and risk management. “Our North American plant’s new AS 9100 certification proves our organisational maturity and provides a vital asset to enable us to become a leading aerospace supplier,” said Michel COGNET, Group Managing Director at CHOMARAT.

MEETING THE DEMANDS OF THE AEROSPACE MARKET
With this certification, CHOMARAT North America is following in the footsteps of the Group’s French plants that were certified to ES 9100 in 2012. The facility now meets the strict criteria set by the market for high performance composites reinforcements for the aerospace industry. The quality system and risk management standards are recognised by purchasers worldwide and is in line with the Group’s growth strategy for the aerospace market. “We are proud of this AS 9100 certification that clearly demonstrates our commitment to quality management and reliability. This accomplishment now allows us to compete as an international aerospace supplier from multiple continents!” said Brian LAUFENBERG, President of CHOMARAT’s NA business.

C-PLY^TM,
THE CHOMARAT REINFORCEMENT THAT HAS ALREADY PROVEN ITS WORTH IN THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY
CHOMARAT has already made a name for itself in the aerospace market with fabrics, tapes and multiaxial carbon reinforcements, particularly its C-PLY™ range. These materials are designed for primary and secondary structures as well as aircraft interior parts. These highly modular materials offer great angle and ply flexibility and open up new opportunities for designing lighter, more efficient and lower cost composite parts. This is a huge advantage in a market with high productivity demands.
This is why C-PLY™ was recently chosen by VX AEROSPACE for their foldaway drone, which can be stowed inside a cylindrical container and deployed from a tactical aircraft. The carbon multiaxial material is used in the construction of the wing, the horizontal stabilizers, the vertical fin and all of the control surfaces. “There is no better material! The extremely thin multiaxial reinforcement is perfect, because strength and stiffness are tailored according to demand. It offers extremely high performance at a reduced cost.” said VX AEROSPACE Chief Engineer Bob SKILLEN.

• JEC Group pays tribute to the winners at JEC World 2018

The 2018 session of JEC World, the reference trade show organized by JEC Group, is in full swing and the focus is on innovation!
The JEC Innovation Awards ceremony, which took place on the Agora stage on Wednesday, March 7 at 5 pm, opened with a presentation by Yves Rossy, aircraft pilot and inventor of the first jet-powered wingpack. Then the jury revealed the names of the composite champions up for a JEC Innovation Award. Eleven winning innovations were chosen, out of the thirty finalists that had been previously selected from more than 100 applications from all over the world.

“JEC Group supports innovation. In 1998, it created the first award dedicated to composites, as a way to promote and reward the sector’s champions. Thanks to the work of JEC Group’s teams, the program has become an international benchmark. Each year, we receive more than a hundred applications from all over the world. Selection is now based on criteria like the level of involvement of the innovation’s partners in the value chain, the technical nature of the innovation, or its commercial applications,” explains JEC Group President & CEO Frédérique Mutel.
A new feature this year is that the jury revealed the winners during the ceremony, and the public could choose their favorite innovation before, during, and after the ceremony. So there is still time to vote! Votes are opened until Thursday March 8th, 5pm http://innovationawards.jec-world.events
Did you miss the ceremony?

11 AWARD WINNERS:
AEROSPACE APPLICATION
Winner:
AeroComposit, JSC (Russia) and its partner Solvay (United Kingdom)

• Infusion technology for an aircraft wing

The use of infusion technology to manufacture primary structural components for an aircraft wing. The technology makes it possible to create extra-long, integrated composite structures with complex aerodynamic shapes.

AEROSPACE PROCESS 
2 tied winners!
Winner: Airbus (Germany) and its partners, BMW Group (Germany), Technical University of Munich (TUM) (Germany), Neue Materialien Bayreuth GmbH (Germany), Werkzeugbau Siegfried Hofmann GmbH (Germany), BASF SE (Germany), Foldcore GmbH (Germany), Neenah Filtration (Germany) and SGL Carbon GmbH (Germany)

• Complex structural applications for MAI sandwich technology

Cost-effective production of a complex 2.5D structure made of thermoplastic composite sandwich, with very short cycle times: under 5 minutes for aerospace materials and 2.5 minutes for automotive materials.

Winner: M. Torres Diseños Industriales SAU (Spain)
Moldless process to manufacture one-piece parts
A new manufacturing process for oversized one-piece reinforced composite structures, without requiring the use of complete molds.

AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATION
Winner: Ford Werke GmbH (Germany) and its partners, Gestamp (United Kingdom), GRM Consulting (United Kingdom) and University of Warwick (United Kingdom)

• Lightweight composite automotive suspension part

Structural suspension part made of lightweight composite, using a brand-new patented process for prepreg/SMC/steel overmolding that was designed using a new computer-aided engineering (CAE) technology.

AUTOMOTIVE PROCESS
Winner: Audi AG (Germany) and its partners, Voith Composites GmbH & Co. KG (Germany), Dow Automotive (Switzerland), and Zoltek Corp. (United States)

• Series production of a rear panel module made of carbon composite

For the first time, the potential of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) is used to full advantage in series production with a new rear panel module and cost-effective production technologies.

CONSTRUCTION & INFRASTRUCTURE
Winner: Komatsu Seiren Co., Ltd. (Japan) and its partners, Kanazawa Institute of Technology (Japan) and Nagase ChemteX Corporation (Japan)

• Cabkoma cable made of CFRTP

Komatsu Seiren has developed a cable made of molded carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP), using a very cost-effective process that consists in polymerizing a thermoplastic epoxy resin in situ.

MARINE
Winner: Uljanik JSC (Croatia)

• Composite cargo decks for a vehicle carrier

On the SIEM Cicero, a vehicle carrier with a capacity of 7,000 vehicles, glass-fiber reinforced composites are used for a number of the structures for the cargo decks, thereby considerably reducing the ship’s weight, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

RAILWAY
Winner: ELG Carbon Fibre Ltd. (United Kingdom) and its partners, Alstom Transport (United Kingdom), Magma Structures (United Kingdom), the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom), and the University of Huddersfield (United Kingdom)

• A bogie frame made of optimized lightweight carbon fiber

This project has developed the very first carbon-fiber bogie frame that uses a recycled material, making it possible to overcome the obstacles to a commercial adoption of this type of structure.

SPORTS & LEISURE
Winner: BMW Group (Germany) and its partners EDAG Engineering GmbH (Germany), KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH (Germany), Chr. Karl Siebenwurst GmbH & Co. KG (Germany), TUM-LCC (Germany), Automation W + R GmbH (Germany), and FHG-IGCV (Germany)

• A modular construction system for the rear swing arm suspension of a motorcycle

A modular system to produce a complex-shape swing arm suspension reinforced with carbon fiber. The system can adjust the mechanical properties on a case-by-case basis, for a competitive cost and weight compared to metal solutions.

SMART CITIES
Winner: MC Materiales Compuestos (Argentina) and its partners, Plaquimet (Argentina), Purcom (Brazil), IS Groupe - Composite Integrity (France), and G12 Innovation (Brazil)

• The Wet Core Pod composite housing module

The Wet Core Pod is a composite housing module with an industrialization potential that can facilitate the most complex, costly and difficult step in a construction project.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Winner: Cetim-Cermat (France) and its partner, CETIM (France)

• “3-in-1” line for producing recycled composites

A modular line that uses an innovative thermomechanical process to make large panels from recycled composites or plastics. The panels are then thermoformed into parts.
 

Hexcel Corporation is proud to announce the unveiling of the third H160 prototype from Airbus Helicopters, featuring a striking carbon-inspired livery that represents the composite materials Hexcel supplies for the helicopter.

This gesture follows Hexcel’s announcement in June that its reinforcements, prepregs, adhesives and honeycomb materials had been selected for the H160’s composite fuselage structures and main rotor blades. The H160 was designed by Airbus Helicopters to create added-value for customers in terms of performance, economic competitiveness, safety and comfort. The use of Hexcel’s composite materials throughout the structure contributes to the lightweight fuel-saving design and performance optimization.
Airbus Helicopters decided to promote the H160 program and its high carbon fiber content in a way that recalls the livery previously used for the A350 XWB. The A350 XWB has a structure that is 53% composites and Hexcel supplies the carbon fiber prepreg for all of the aircraft’s composite primary structures.
The newly unveiled H160 prototype is a fitting tribute to the 40-year partnership between Hexcel and Airbus Helicopters.

The world is in serious need of solutions to create sustainable growth and jobs. The World Circular Economy Forum 2017 is bringing 1,500 specialists from around the world to Finland to show how this can be done. The groundbreaking event will focus on the world’s best circular economy solutions in which business and the environment go hand in hand. The host country Finland is the first in the world to have published a comprehensive road map to a circular economy.
The country’s leading future-oriented think-and-do tank Sitra is now inviting the shapers of our future well-being to celebrate Finland’s 100th year of independence at the forum. Come and experience Finland’s own inspirational story as a global leader as we put the circular economy into practice and deliver concrete benefits across all sectors of business and society. “A circular economy is about using resources more efficiently and creating more value with what we have,” says Dr Mari Pantsar, Director of Sitra’s Carbon-neutral circular economy. “It can be the win-win approach everyone is looking for. For companies, circular products and business models help cut costs, manage risks and create new revenue. For societies, moving away from the current linear ‘consume-and-throw-away’ economy offers large benefits for tackling the climate crisis, reducing waste and creating jobs.” The PC-24 is in the final stages of its certification program following the first flight of the third and final test aircraft on March 6 2017. The aircraft is scheduled for certification and entry into service in the 4th quarter 2017. Pilatus has so far secured 84 orders for the PC-24, which equates to three years of production.

Hexcel is exhibiting at the SAMPE 2017 technical conference May 23-24, in booth G11, in Seattle, Washington, U.S. to promote its latest materials for aerospace and industrial applications. Specialists from Hexcel’s carbon fibers, reinforcements, prepregs, honeycomb and engineered core groups will be there to speak with attendees about Hexcel’s wide variety of products and offerings.

This year at SAMPE Seattle Hexcel will be promoting its HiTape® dry carbon fiber reinforcements with a C spar panel and co-infused stringer. This display shows the high forming capability of HiTape® reinforcements and how the technology can be used to co-infuse stringers and C spar panels. It is also representative of an aircraft wing construction. HiTape® dry carbon fiber reinforcements are designed for the automated manufacture of preforms at very high deposition rates. The dry preforms are infused with Hexcel’s HexFlow® RTM6 resin for a cost-efficient out-of-autoclave manufacturing process for next generation aircraft structures. Parts produced with HiTape® reinforcements and Hexcel’s HexFlow® infusion resins can be up to 30mm thick with a 58 to 60% fiber volume content, resulting in mechanical properties that are as high as those achieved with primary structure prepregs.