Source: Composites Manufacturing Magazine
By:
More than 100 companies exhibiting at this week’s Paris Air Show (June 19-25 in Le Bourget) are listed on the event’s website as having some form of expertise in composites. And that’s before factoring in OEMs like Boeing, which will bring a test version of its composite-intensive 787-10 Dreamliner and 737 MAX 9 aircraft to the show. Airbus, of course, will have its A350-1000 on display as well.
The U.S. Department of Defense is also scheduled to display several Boeing platforms that heavily feature composites, including the V-22 multirole tilt-rotor aircraft, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, and the CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter.
One of the major suppliers to Boeing and its various programs, Hexcel, will use the show as an opportunity to display a range of carbon fibers and composite materials for aircraft. The company’s HexTow® IM5 is a new carbon fiber it says “offers a unique strength/modulus combination for primary structure optimization, positioned between High Strength (standard modulus) carbon fiber and high-performance Intermediate Modulus fiber.”
Hexcel will also display a C295 outer wing box demonstrator panel manufactured with HiTape® reinforcement by Airbus Defence and Space as part of the APOLO-Cleansky2 project. The HiTape® preforms for the skin, stringer and spars were laid-up robotically in an automated process and then co-infused with Hexcel HexFlow® epoxy resin RTM6 in a cost-efficient out-of-autoclave process.
Other major companies promoting composite solutions at the show include Daher, Solvay, Orbital ATK, Innegra Technologies, PPG, TenCate Advanced Composites and Albany Engineered Composites. Daher will showcase its first-ever thermoplastic composite commercial aircraft wing rib, which will be used in the test wing box built as part of the Composite Aircraft of the Future platform led by the French Civil Aviation Research Council (CORAC) initiative in 2018. Orbital ATK will display its composite stringers and frames used for the for the Airbus A350, Boeing 787 and Lockheed Martin F-35 programs. Innegra will highlight its ground-based radome products. PPG will showcase its second-generation “Electronically Dimmable Window (EDW)” with Vision Systems that can reduce weight and maintenance costs and can be applied to plastic or composite glass.
For more information, visit the Paris Air Show’s website.