JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - 2020 1st Quarter - Innovation report - 18

INNOVATION REPORT

Aerospace

R&D
HEATED TOOL-CURED INTEGRATED WING SKIN

Spirit AeroSystems combined its patented self-heated tooling and resin infusion technology to produce the world's first
lower wing cover (LWC) demonstrator with no autoclave or oven. Utilizing its design for manufacturing and infusion
expertise, Spirit achieved complete integration of the LWC skin, stringers and fuselage fittings into a single component.
Combining Saertex's HTS40 non-crimp fabric, Solvay's 890 resin and a low-cost semi-rigid bag for dimensional control,
the company attained a consistent fibre volume fraction and part tolerances. Saertex's HTS40 also features a thermoplastic veil that improves
damage tolerance and enables weight and material savings. Heat for infusion and cure is delivered through a composite tool with embedded heated
zones, each monitored and controlled independently. Heating the part directly with the tool reduces processing times and equipment costs. The tool also
incorporates a patented resin delivery system, with infusion port locations optimized through resin flow Aeronautics, further minimizing processing times.
An automated stringer cell advances high-rate manufacture by accepting raw material, consolidating, dynamically forming and trimming on-the-fly to
produce tool-ready fabric preforms. Finally, a newly-developed combined inspection and metrology cell streamlines validation. These combined design,
material, Aeronautic, fabrication, and automation innovations significantly reduce costs and enable higher rate composite manufacturing.

Multi-sector

www.spiritaero.com

TEGRA CARBON FIBRE TECHNOLOGY SOLVES LONG FIBRE ISSUES

DISRUPTIVE BIO-MIMETIC TECHNOLOGY
BOOSTS THE TOUGHNESS AND IMPACT
STRENGTH OF COMPOSITE PARTS

The bio-architecture material found in the mantis shrimp's club is
stronger and tougher than other biological materials. The mantis
is one of nature's feistiest predators, equipped with a dactyl club
that performs and survives rapid underwater
attacks. With a speed exceeding a 0.22
caliber bullet, it pulverizes the shells of various
prey, thanks to its internal structure providing
perfect impact protection. Nature evolved it
over hundreds of million years to create a highly efficient, incredibly tough
material architecture organized in helicoid plies. More than 60 researchers
at three universities worked for over 11 years and more than $9M were
invested to understand and reverse engineer the mantis shrimp's club
structure to a composite laminate. This unique helicoid composite design
approach is patented by the University of California Riverside (UCR) and
licensed exclusively to Helicoid Industries Inc.
Helicoid composite laminates are made of UD fibre layers stacked with
typically 10° to 25° angles of in-plane rotation between adjacent layers.
Helicoid-designed parts provide clear benefits: improved toughness
and impact strength; weight and cost savings at equal impact strength;
minimized crack propagation and damage; higher in-plane energy
dissipation enabling thinner/lighter laminates; and lay-up design changes
with no new CapEx required as the process and fibre/resin materials
remain the same.
The helicoid architecture results in lighter, stronger, tougher, and more
impact resistant structures. www.helicoidind.com

Multi-sector

Italica recently developed its own carbon fibre technology called Tegra, which stands for Tempered Graphite. This technology concerns both
the raw material and the production process. With the compression moulding of this new material, some of the main issues of traditional long
fibre can be solved, such as shapes with square angles, changes in thickness, production output and high costs, making Tegra accessible to
new applications in many different fields.
Out-of-the-mould parts can be produced in less than 2 minutes. This is a great production advantage because high-performance out-of-themould products like traditional carbon fibre products can be produced at lower price and with shapes that would be impossible to manufacture with
compression-moulding of traditional carbon fibre.
The process is entirely developed and implemented in the company's Italian facility.
www.italicaspa.com

ELECTROPOLYMERISATION
OF CARBON FIBRES WITH PMAA

A novel method for functionalising the surface of carbon fibre (CF)
for carbon fibre-reinforced composites (CFRPs) was developed by
the Research Lab of Advanced, Composite, Nano Materials and
Nanotechnology (R-NanoLab) in the National Technical University
of Athens, School of Chemical Engineering. Through the electrografting of
methacrylic acid (MAA) onto the surface, this treatment aims to selectively
modify the surface of carbon fibres in order to create active groups that
can chemically react with epoxy resin under heat and pressure. This way,
better adhesion can be achieved, as mechanical interlocking between the
resin and the reinforcement.
The results showed an
increased
mechanical
performance of the composite
materials, as both flexural
and shear strength were
increased, by 8.67 and 5.57%
respectively. After the success
of this treatment, efforts were made for the transition of the lab-scale
procedure, carried out in an electrochemical cell, to the real treatment of
continuous CF in a sizing bath for continuous treatment. The continuous
electropolymerisation process consists of two stages: anodic oxidation
followed by electropolymerization. With the developed procedure, a daily
production of 115 metres of treated fibre was achieved. The aim now is to
apply new smart sensing technologies to this continuous sizing process to
detect the MAA solution's end of life.

http://nanolab.chemeng.ntua.gr/

jec composites magazine / January-February-March 2020

http://www.spiritaero.com http://www.italicaspa.com http://www.helicoidind.com http://nanolab.chemeng.ntua.gr/

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - 2020 1st Quarter - Innovation report

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