The fuselage of the next generation of large passenger aircraft seems to rely on the advantages of thermoplastic composite materials. Greater resilience, recycling potential and faster production cycles can provide the ability to meet the challenges of the aviation industry in the future.
Thermoplastic composites have been used in the latest generation of aircraft, such as seat brackets, because they help to reduce the weight of the aircraft, thereby reducing fuel consumption, but the application in large components still needs to overcome several problems.
The use of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastics to manufacture complex-shaped aircraft tail components is a considerable challenge: high processing temperatures, raw material costs, complex temperature control tools, and evolving cross-sections. In order to support the plan, the focus of the plan is to develop concepts and enabling technologies for optimizing the rear fuselage and tail. Several organizations jointly initiated a 2.5-year applied research project "Frames": fiber-reinforced thermoplastics manufacturing for processing Ribs, complex, hyperbolic structure.
The main goal of Frames is to verify and evaluate the manufacturing method of the integral thermoplastic tail with key design features. The key technology developed in Frames will be used in the mid-sized advanced tail demonstrator manufactured by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which is part of the large passenger aircraft technology platform.
By integrating their strength and knowledge, the alliance is seeking to bring reliable and competitive industrial solutions to intelligent heating systems to realize automatic laying, efficient afterburner production processes and advanced heating tools. Three work packages will support key enabling technologies: develop a combined photothermal simulation model for fiber laying, which can be used with xenon heating equipment such as humm3 to achieve rapid spreading.
An organization is responsible for the development of a robust manufacturing process for complex thermoplastic rigid bodies, which has mature high productivity capabilities. In addition, another organization will be responsible for providing a self-heating mold solution, so that the reinforcement process of the skin reinforcement can be completed in one go.