The customer, the Italian aircrafts manufacturer AgustaWestland launched its new AW169 helicopter for the civil market. The official announcement of the JEC Group mentioned this innovation primarily lies in the lower weight achieved compared to the previous composite design for such horizontal tailgates (up to 15% weight reduction claimed) and the lower production costs thanks to an easy assembly of four simple thermoplastic preforms, that are press-melted onto the structural torsion box. This is indeed another well-known advantage of thermoplastics over thermosets — not only are the cycle times shorter, the manufacturing processes are much easier with thermoplastics; whereas thermosets always require a high amount of manual or semi-manual steps.
However, even if thermoplastic composites have made significant inroads in the composite market over these past few years, there are still applications and markets remaining out of the reach of these thermoplastic composites. When meeting with company directors and/or R&D directors during the 2013 JEC Show in Paris, it was evident that the Defense and Aerospace industries do not really believe in thermoplastic-based composites for their applications. However, they all agree with the fact that many challenging applications usually made out of metal, concrete or thermoset-based composites can now turn to thermoplastic solutions, thanks to broadened product offerings and innovative and high performing reinforcing systems. Let's review some of these advances and new thermoplastic-based composites solutions.
The customer, the Italian aircrafts manufacturer AgustaWestland launched its new AW169 helicopter for the civil market. The official announcement of the JEC Group mentioned this innovation primarily lies in the lower weight achieved compared to the previous composite design for such horizontal tailgates (up to 15% weight reduction claimed) and the lower production costs thanks to an easy assembly of four simple thermoplastic preforms, that are press-melted onto the structural torsion box. This is indeed another well-known advantage of thermoplastics over thermosets — not only are the cycle times shorter, the manufacturing processes are much easier with thermoplastics; whereas thermosets always require a high amount of manual or semi-manual steps.
However, even if thermoplastic composites have made significant inroads in the composite market over these past few years, there are still applications and markets remaining out of the reach of these thermoplastic composites. When meeting with company directors and/or R&D directors during the 2013 JEC Show in Paris, it was evident that the Defense and Aerospace industries do not really believe in thermoplastic-based composites for their applications. However, they all agree with the fact that many challenging applications usually made out of metal, concrete or thermoset-based composites can now turn to thermoplastic solutions, thanks to broadened product offerings and innovative and high performing reinforcing systems. Let's review some of these advances and new thermoplastic-based composites solutions.
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