Polymer Composites in the Aerospace Industry

3

Manufacturing processes for composite materials and components for aerospace applications

A. McIlhagger, E. Archer,  and R. McIlhagger     University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, UK

Abstract

For the successful operation of civil aircraft, the main drivers currently are environmentally based. This implies that significant weight reductions are essential, and hence a fundamental re-think of the materials and their manufacturing processes used has taken place over a number of years. To realise the benefits offered by advanced composite materials, manufacturing processes must be able to produce economically large components with as few joints as possible. Also in order to increase robustness of primary structures in-service, there is a move towards co-curing ...