MICHAEL PHELAN / PAPENDRECHT
Composite material manufacturer begins A380 upper fuselage skin panel deliveries
Stork Aerospace is confident its Glare composite material can have much wider uses, as it comes close to completing delivery of the first shipset of upper fuselage skin panels for the Airbus A380. Company president Kees de Koning is eyeing further Glare applications on the A380 as well as on fighter aircraft, and also sees the potential for additional weight reduction as the material's properties are refined.
Glare is a glassfibre-reinforced aluminium composite, made from alternating layers of 0.38mm (0.015in) aluminium sheet and glassfibre-reinforced bond film. The structure is 15-30% lighter than aluminium and has excellent fatigue properties since each glassfibre layer functions as a crackstopper.
Glare is being used for 27 skin panels on the A380's upper front and upper rear fuselage, with a total surface area of 470m2 (5,050ft2), but Stork is confident further skin work will come its way. "We didn't put Glare on the centre fuselage because of the high shear loads, but we think we can tailor Glare's properties to suit the location," says de Koning. The A380-800F and the -900, if developed, may provide further Glare opportunities for Stork.
Maarten van Mourik, director of Glare metal bonding at Stork Fokker Aerostructures, says Glare has excellent fire and impact resistance properties. Stork already supplies thermoplastic J-nose wing fixed leading edges for Airbus A340-500/600s and A380s, and van Mourik says Glare's higher impact resistance would make it an ideal future J-nose material. Of Glare's fire resistance, de Koning says: "One use we could consider would be as a firewall between adjacent engine bays on a fighter aircraft."
The current A380 configuration uses aluminium stringers rivetted to Glare skins, but the use of Glare stringers and buttstraps is also being evaluated. Before selecting Glare for the A380, Airbus Germany conducted a "Megaliner" fuselage barrel test using Glare buttstraps, stringers and stringer couplings.
Meanwhile, Stork's €40 million ($45 million), 12,000m2 Glare production facility at Papendrecht, the Netherlands, "will be up and ready by July", says de Koning.
Source: Flight International
