Composites are very much on the minds of senior GKN Aerospace executives as they head for Farnborough, with three major initiatives on the go.
GKN is in the final stages of a deal to buy part of the Airbus facility at Filton, in the west of England, with the objective of increasing composite manufacturing significantly over current levels.
GKN bosses also hope to be able to announce a major deal at the show that will give them exclusive access to new-technology carbon fibre laying machines for the next five years. And the company is working on composite manufacturing techniques that should give radically lower manufacturing costs without having to outsource operations to the Far East.
The aerostructures, propulsion systems and special products specialist plans to double its current $2 billion annual turnover by 2017, having racked up revenue growth of 20% over the past six years. GKN has great belief in the future of composite materials, and set up a research centre into the material on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, in 2005.
The centre is studying techniques such as the use of self-heated tools and microwaves to cure composites, to remove the bottleneck of autoclave curing from the manufacturing process. Using microwaves is not only much cheaper, says Phil Grainger, GKN’s group technical director, but more environmentally friendly, requiring only around 10% of the energy used by an autoclave.
One technique being tested involves initially shielding part of a composite structure from this curing process, before positioning it against another uncured surface and then microwaving them to create a bond.
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Aspects of manufacturing composites have traditionally been laborious, but automation is about to reduce this drastically, says Grainger. Taking humans out of the loop not only makes the process faster but improves quality: “It’s getting to the point where we will be saying ‘Why are we inspecting every component?’.”
As part of the company’s efforts to speed composite component manufacture, it is using Automated Tape Lay-up (ATL) equipment to manufacture the primary wing spar of the Airbus A400M military transport. ATL can lay composite tapes 150mm or 300mm wide at rates of around 40lb (18kg) of tape an hour. Typical hand lay-up rates vary between 1 to 3 lb/hr. This has obvious financial benefits: “Low cost doesn’t have to mean going halfway round the world,” says Grainger. The company is also exploring application of Automated Fibre Placement (AFP). ATL excels at the production of large, reasonably flat structures but can cause composite fibre buckling in more highly-shaped components. AFP, although not as swift as ATL, will lay-up accurately over far more extreme curves and changes in direction.
Grainger is an enthusiast for composite components: “The example I use is the GEnx fan case. We make metal and composite ones. For a metal one, you’re probably talking about a lead time of about four months. Lead time for a composite one is five days.”
Further indications of the importance GKN Aerospace attaches to composites came just a few weeks ago when it announced a new £11 million ($22m) joint venture company with Rolls-Royce to research and develop the use of composites in engine fan blades.
“We have long been a driving force in the application of lightweight, high-performance composites to the airframe,” says CEO Marcus Bryson, “and it is one of our strategic goals to bring the benefits of composite materials to propulsion systems. Through our partnership with Rolls-Royce, we will achieve a genuine advance in propulsion system technology that will move us towards a lighter, more environmentally efficient aero-engine.”
The big prize on the horizon is work on the Next Generation Single Aisle airliner: “Our exposure to the current generation of single-aisle aircraft is virtually zero,” says Bryson. “For our growth profile, it’s essential to get on to the Next Generation Single Aisle.”
That growth profile has seen the company’s turnover expand at around 20% per year since 2002 and Bryson believes this will continue. “Last year our growth was 24% on the top and bottom lines. This year it will be slightly less than that but it won’t be far off 20%.
“Depending on what happens with Filton we’re then into more of a period of consolidation…but we will still show very respectable growth. We’re still very clear on our strategy of going from $2 billion to $4bn turnover and beyond by 2017.”
Bryson is cautiously optimistic about near-future prospects. Much obviously depends on the price of oil in coming months, but he believes that the economic situation is not as grim as in previous downturns. Bleaker economic indicators mean “the froth is going to come off the market”, he says.
“We’re probably heading for some choppy water. Are we headed for a 1990s-style downturn? No. I think we’re in uncharted territory. We’ve moved away from the classic ‘North America sneezes and the rest of us catch a cold’ syndrome, because there’s a whole different set of market dynamics now with countries such as India, China and Russia involved in the global marketplace.”
He believes the burgeoning numbers of people in those nations who can newly afford air travel will offset any drop in numbers in the West. “In aerospace you may get cutbacks over here but countries like China still have phenomenal growth. People there firstly want to buy a car, then they want to take a foreign holiday and they want to fly.”
He accepts that much depends on the fluctuations of the oil price. “If oil goes to $200 a barrel, will it have a dramatic impact? Yes, it will and as a business we’re mindful of the risk. If there’s a downturn we’re well-positioned to cope with that, probably more so than we were after 9/11, when we had to do some major restructuring.
“As we’ve gone through the upturn we’ve not got carried away. We’ve kept our feet on the ground and kept control of our costs and if there’s a downturn we can react fairly promptly, but I don’t think we’re into a major slide in the market.”
Source: Flight Daily News
