Composite materials are important to advancements in these industries because they combine the strength of fibres with the resilience of plastics. Commonly used in the aerospace sector, composites are now becoming more widely used in areas like construction (to make whole bridges, for example) and for lighter, larger and stronger wind turbines. The projects are in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) and their partner companies and universities in the US.

The projects being funded are led by innovative UK composites producers, working in partnership with universities and leading research and technology organisations such as TWI and HVM Catapult Centres such as the National Composites Centre and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre

Simon Edmonds, Innovate UK’s, Deputy Executive Chair and Chief Business Officer

The projects are funded in the UK by the Fund for International Collaboration (FIC), which is designed to support the UK to form new and strengthen existing, bilateral partnerships for research and innovation with leading nations with a reputation for excellence. US funding has been provided by the US Department of Energy, State governments and private industry.

The seven projects, including their respective UK and USA partners, are in brief:

• CADFEC: Fibre Engineered Composites, for car components: Aston Martin and Expert Tooling and Automation, based in Coventry. U.S. partners include DowAksa, Dow Chemical, and Purdue University
• TACOMA: X-ray scanning for high-speed inspection of Automotive composite parts: TWI, Cambridge. U.S. partners include American Chemistry Council and Michigan State University
• HIPPAC: Advanced composites for stronger, lighter wind-turbine blades: Fibreforce Composites, Runcorn; Brunel University. U.S. partners include National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, GE Energy, and Montefibre
• FibreSteer: Fibre shaping for stronger aerospace components: iComat (a University of Bristol spin-out company), National Composites Centre (part of HVM Catapult) and Airbus. U.S. partners include Airbus Americas and University of Dayton Research Institute
• FibreLoop: Re-cycling carbon fibre production waste into new high-value components: NetComposites, Chesterfield; Far-UK, Nottingham and the Advanced Materials Research Centre (part of HVM Catapult). U.S. partners include Vartega, BASF, Michelman, and Michigan State University
• ENACT: Polymer layering for ‘overmoulding’, allowing more sophisticated design for complex parts: Surface Generation, Rutland, and Nottingham University. U.S. partner is Michigan State University
• TexTape: Trying to substantially reduce the costs of carbon fibre thermoplastics: Composites Evolution, Chesterfield, and National Composites. US partner is Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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The global market for composites is predicted to be worth $105.8bn in 2020 and growing at 6.5% per year. In the UK alone, the value of composites is expected to reach c. £12.5bn by 2030.

Aerospace is a significant driver of demand, with operators looking to replace ageing aircraft fleets with the latest, most fuel-efficient models.  Using current, labour-intensive techniques, manufacturers can only make 6 pairs of wings per month. The market requires 100. Meeting this need means radically re-thinking how these wings are made.

For the past two years, a team comprised of engineers, researchers, software architects, roboticists and textile experts have explored how digital technologies can make composites easier to design for, as well as quicker and cheaper to make. A key goal was to demonstrate that they could be a viable, mass-producible alternative to traditional metallic parts.  The results of this research are 10 ground-breaking new machines which redefine the ‘state of the art’ for composite manufacturing.

The stars of the new facility are two huge industrial robots that automate the wing production process. Weighing 45 tonnes and 24 tonnes respectively, the robots measure, cut, lift and place pieces of carbon fibre fabric (‘plies’) with millimetric accuracy. They can also lay 5m wide strips of composite material, up to 20m long, in one precise movement. This could cut the number of fabric components required from c.100,000 to just 150 and reduces wing-build time from one week to one day. This has the potential to revolutionise aircraft production.

Other technologies include a giant circular Braider, the largest of its kind in Europe, which automatically weaves up to 288 individual strands of high strength carbon fibre to create hollow 3D shapes (or geometries), for products such as pipes or aircraft propellers.

The Overmoulder, meanwhile, shows how composite components can be mass-produced at rate. This would enable carmakers, for example, to use more of the technology in mainstream vehicles, making them lighter and more durable. These are key considerations given the long-term shift towards electrification and, beyond that, new models of shared ownership where cars will be expected to do vast mileages.

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The fan blades and fan cases being made at the facility are a feature of the Rolls-Royce UltraFan engine demonstrator, a new engine design which will reduce fuel burn and CO2 by at least 25% compared to the first Trent engine.

The new facility will use low-energy, very low emissions processes and features state-of-the-art automated manufacturing methods and materials. It will maximise the use of raw materials, reducing waste. with the company targeting zero emissions at its operations and facilities by 2030.

The facility will focus on carbon fibre composites, which are used in the aerospace industry to reduce weight significantly. The lighter an engine is, the less fuel it burns, creating fewer emissions. A Rolls-Royce fan system made with carbon fibre composites can save almost 700kg per aircraft, the equivalent of seven passengers and their luggage.

The fan blades are made by manufacturing techniques that build up hundreds of layers of carbon fibre materials, pre-filled with state-of-the-art toughness-enhanced resin material. Heat and pressure are then applied, and each blade is finished with a thin titanium leading edge, which offers extreme protection against erosion, foreign objects and bird strikes.

From January, the facility will begin making fan blades and cases for the UltraFan demonstrator engine. The composite system for the UltraFan engine demonstrator is taking shape, and different parts have completed aerodynamic performance, bird-strike, containment, icing and water ingestion tests, as well as ground and flight testing.

Rolls-Royce has been involved in developing carbon fibre technologies for several decades and already uses the material for parts within its engines. The new facility will take this technology to the next level.

It will benefit from manufacturing techniques that have been developed in partnership with the National Composites Centre in Bristol, and research conducted at the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre at the University of Bristol, as well as several other universities and research centres based in the UK and in Europe.

The facility has secured 150 jobs in Bristol. An existing composite manufacturing technology facility, along with around 30 employees, has been transferred from the Isle of Wight. Since 2008, the UK Government has provided funding and support for Rolls-Royce composite technology research and development, including £7.4m of funding to support the Isle of Wight facility. The equipment from here has been moved and developed further at the new facility in Bristol.

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The company has recently completed their “CoFusion” project with funding from the National Aerospace Technology Exploitation Programme (NATEP), in partnership with the UK National Composites Centre, TenCate Advanced Composites and Rolls Royce. The project involved work to optimise the efficiency and applicability of an innovative, low-cost thermoplastic composite welding process.

The “CoFusion” project demonstrated that carbon/polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) composite thermoformed components can be reliably welded to form complex assemblies utilising resistive composite welding elements that contain no metal meshes or inserts.

The resulting welded components feature consistent high strength and fatigue properties that have been demonstrated at both coupon and component levels. Low cost equipment and materials can be used and the heating to welding temperature takes only three minutes. The process is not limited to flat components; panels with significant curvature can be welded reliably. All resulting welds are high quality with no voids passing standard ultrasonic Non-destructive Testing (NDT) specifications.

Welded top-hat sandwich panels were produced and structurally compared by torsional strength and fatigue testing to identical riveted parts. The welded component had higher stiffness and greater strength reaching five times that of the riveted component. The fatigue performance of the welded component was also significantly superior with no damage at 350,000 cycles in comparison to the riveted parts that only survived 50,000 cycles.

Wayne Exton, CEO of AGC AeroComposites said;

The CoFusion project was a tremendous opportunity for our company to pursue advances in composite technology, the ability to weld thermoformed thermoplastic composite components to form structurally efficient light weight assemblies allows us to continue to provide our global customer base with innovative, high quality, cost-effective products.

The NATEP funding ran for 18 months and had a total budget of £275,000; half of which was funded through NATEP

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The agreement sets out to advance the innovation capability and capacity across the two organisations. Luxembourg’s aspirations to strengthen its (already strong) innovation capacity are supported by €1 billion for programmes and infrastructure, including the opening later this year of a €60m composites centre. The new centre will complement LIST’s capabilities, which include bio-based materials, nano additives and life cycle analysis, all of which are of interest to the NCC.

The National Composites Centre opened in 2011 and now employs over 200 staff. The NCC has the means to research, design, develop, prototype and test across a full range of relevant sectors. It has partnerships with Research and Technology Organisation’s and Universities in the UK and globally, to ensure delivery of the optimum solutions for industry.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the NCC and LIST offers an important opportunity to grow knowledge through partnership. This is a model that the NCC has utilised already with other leading intuitions such as the Japanese National Composites Centre and the Stichting Thermoplastic Composites Centre in the Netherlands, alongside University research groups across the world including the University of Bristol. The link between LIST and NCC will further advance exploitation of the opportunities of composites for the UK.

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Prof Richard Day will work with the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing (AMRC) and the National Composites Centre in Bristol (NCC) to develop microwave technology that industry could use to cut curing times, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Richard is Professor of Composites Engineering at Glyndŵr University, in Wrexham and an expert on the rapid manufacturing of composites, critical for the next generation of aircraft. He founded the North West Composites Centre at Manchester University before joining Glyndŵr University in 2010, where he helped form the Advanced Composites Training and Development Centre with Airbus in Broughton, Flintshire.

He will work closely with both the AMRC and National Composites Centre to develop microwave ovens as an alternative to conventional technology, using autoclaves – ovens that heat components under pressure. Researchers have been using microwaves to cure composites for some years, but have yet to develop robust processes that could be used by industry to make geometrically complex parts, as opposed to flat panels.

The four-year research programme will explore and overcome manufacturing problems associated with microwave curing, before going on to make complex components, identical to those used in aeroplanes.

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The underground’s innovation team has led a group of industry experts to explore using materials previously only used in the aerospace industry to construct a commercially viable, lightweight train door.

With the project is in its final stage, the prototype door is currently undergoing structural tests, ensuring that all design and safety regulations are met. The underground say that tube customers could benefit from reduced journey and waiting times on platforms; a saving of 530,000 passenger hours a year. Furthermore, reduction in mechanical stresses in other parts of the door system would reduce the frequency of door-related failures leading to fewer delays.

The total weight saving of using the lighter composite material for doors across a Central line train would be 1.25 tonnes, with huge benefits on train energy consumption and track wear. For London Underground the application of these innovative new doors on the Central line alone would mean savings of over £5 million a year.

In the long term this research will be a push towards lighter trains in the future, which will reduce operating and maintenance costs. The research also offers the potential to see longer doors installed on existing Tube trains, which would reduce boarding and alighting times. For customers this would mean the possibility of increasing the number of trains running on the Tube.

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Aerospace and automotive OEMs are striving to reduce the production cycle times of composite components to provide credible light weight substitutes to traditional high volume metal production solutions. The UK composites industry has led the way in autoclave production of high performance composite components.

There are a lot of synergies with Formaplex’ current work in resin transfer mould and injection mould tool design with new developments now being undertaken in its new composites R&D facility. The membership will give Formaplex the opportunity to collaborate with other companies also at the forefront of their fields of composite expertise.

Tom Hitchings, Business Development Director of the NCC, said:

This is great news for the National Composites Centre. Formaplex brings considerable experience and expertise in composite tooling and machining and we are very pleased to welcome them to our growing membership. We can now look forward to producing some of the world’s state-of-the-art tooling and machining solutions, activities that haven’t been tried anywhere else in the world.

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