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Carbon Revolution: The weight has been successfully reduced by 35%, and the transport helicopter plans to use carbon fiber composite wheels

Carbon fiber automotive wheel supplier Carbon Revolution (Geelong, Australia) has demonstrated the strength and capability of its lightweight wheels for aerospace applications, successfully delivering a nearly proven CH-47 Chinook helicopter for Boeing (Chicago, IL, USA) of composite wheels.

This Tier 1 automotive supplier concept wheel is 35% lighter than traditional aerospace versions and meets durability needs, providing an entry point for other vertical lift aerospace and military applications.

Virtually proven wheels can withstand the CH-47's large take-off weight of 24,500 kg.

The project was funded by an Australian Government Defence Innovation Centre contract and Carbon Revolution engineers designed a prototype wheel that is 35% lighter than the wheels currently used by Chinook, while still being able to withstand military applications in terms of durability and accommodating older hardware.

Those involved say the program presents an important opportunity for the company to demonstrate the benefits of its lightweight technology in aerospace applications, while emphasizing the strength of carbon fiber wheels.

"Our design and engineering teams are focused on optimizing the global architecture to find efficient structures to support loads within the design space," said those involved. "Thanks to our lightweight carbon fiber technology and our team's work to optimize the wheel geometry to improve its efficiency, our concept wheel demonstrates a 35 percent weight reduction (over 60 pounds for six wheels), with the potential for even greater weight savings ."

The program presents a great opportunity for Tier 1 automotive supplier Carbon Revolution to extend the application of its technology to the aerospace sector, thereby significantly reducing the weight of aircraft designs, the person added.


These wheels can be offered on newly built CH-47 Chinook helicopters and retrofitted to thousands of CH-47s currently in operation around the world, but our real opportunity lies in other civilian and military VTOL applications," the company said. "In particular, the weight savings for commercial operators will lead to significant savings in fuel costs. "

Those involved say the project demonstrates the team's capabilities beyond the wheel of a car. The wheels are designed to meet the CH-47's large static vertical load requirements of over 9,000kg per wheel. By comparison, a performance car requires about 500kg per wheel for one of Carbon Revolution's ultra-lightweight wheels.

"This aerospace program brought many different design requirements, and in many cases, these requirements were much more stringent than for automobiles," the person noted. "The fact that we were able to meet these requirements and still make a lighter wheel is a testament to the strength of carbon fiber, and our team's talent for designing extremely strong wheels."

The virtual validation report submitted to the Defense Innovation Center includes results from finite element analysis (FEA), subscale testing, and internal layer structure design.

"During the design process, we also considered other important aspects, such as in-service inspection and the manufacturability of the wheel," the person continued. "These are critical to ensuring that projects like this are viable in the real world for us and our clients."

The next phase of the program will involve Carbon Revolution producing and testing prototype wheels, with the potential to expand to other aerospace applications in the future.

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