Both Hexcel and Farnborough celebrate their 60th anniversaries this year, with Hexcel again participating in the air show on 14th – 20th July (Hall 4, Stand G11) as it has done since the early years when the company pioneered the development of strong lightweight composite materials and epoxy adhesives for aircraft construction.
Composites now play an essential role in helping aircraft designers to meet the performance and weight-saving targets for new programs. Hexcel has just been awarded its largest ever contract to supply the carbon fiber composites for the primary structures of the Airbus A350 XWB. At least 53% of the A350 XWB airframe is to be built in composites and Hexcel’s contract is expected to generate revenues of $4 - $5 billion through 2025.
Hexcel is also opening three new plants in its 60th year - in France, Spain and China – and investing $280 million to increase carbon fiber capacity to 7000 Tonnes by 2010.
The spirit of innovation has continued at Hexcel through to the present and at this year’s Farnborough show the company will promote a number of new composite technologies that are benefiting aircraft designers and manufacturers.
Hexcel is launching HexPly® M56, a new Out of Autoclave (OOA) prepreg for aircraft secondary structures. Unlike traditional aerospace prepregs that require an autoclave cure to achieve the required properties, HexPly® M56 provides the same quality and performance from a simple oven cure under vacuum. This avoids capital investment in autoclave equipment and on-going processing costs.
HexPly® M56 is available with woven carbon, UD carbon tape, woven glass and Metallic mesh reinforcements and is suitable for Hand Lay-up, Automated Tape Laying (ATL) and Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) processing. The standard cure temperature is 180°C and an alternative 135°C cure cycle is possible, with potential for reduced tooling costs and composite repair applications.
In OEM and Tier 1 trials all requirements for porosity, C-scan, surface aspect and mechanical performance have been achieved. The easy handling of HexPly® M56, for Hand Lay-up and ATL applications, is also appreciated, along with the 30 day tack life at room temperature.
Hexcel will also be promoting its machinable composite tooling material, HexTOOL® at Farnborough. HexTOOL® is revolutionizing the production of tooling for aerospace composite parts, providing many benefits compared to prepregs and Invar. HexTOOL® can be machined without distortion, allowing complex shaped tools to be manufactured to tight tolerances that maintain vacuum integrity. With a coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) that matches carbon/epoxy composites, HexTOOL® is lighter than metal tooling, allowing easier handling and reduced infrastructure investment. HexTOOL® provides fast heat-up and cool down rates relative to metal tools, leading to reduced production costs. It can be repaired and modified to accommodate design changes and withstands several hundred autoclave cycles at 180°C.
Hexcel is also promoting its HexWeb® Acousti-Cap™ noise dampening system for jet engine nacelles. This unique honeycomb with cell inserts has, after years of study by NASA, been deemed a significant improvement over the current state-of-the-art methods of dampening jet engine inlet noise. It is now being incorporated in a number of new and existing aircraft engines.
Hexcel’s Redux® brand of adhesives for metal-to-metal and composite bonding was launched over 50 years ago and the range continues to evolve. Redux® 870 is a new two-component, gap filling high performance liquid shim adhesive that was developed to support Airbus requirements for new aircraft program and has recently achieved AIMS qualification 10-07-001. The new shimming adhesive is supplied in cartridges so is easy to handle, has a long working life and cures at room temperature or with heat for an accelerated cure process. Other benefits of Redux® 870 are its outstanding compression and shear properties and performance at high temperatures.
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Hexcel Corporation is a leading advanced composites company. It develops, manufactures and markets lightweight, high-performance structural materials, including carbon fibers, reinforcements, prepregs, honeycomb, matrix systems, adhesives and composite structures, used in commercial aerospace, space and defense and industrial applications.