COMPOSITES
Te composite tooling will be capable of measuring temperature, pressure and refractive index – directly correlated with the state of the material – to provide a real-time process control with unprecedented reliability. Te performance advantages offered
by composites over traditional materials, in particular lightweight, high strength and high stiffness, makes them ideal materials for applications requiring highly advanced technologies, such as aircraft and automotive parts. To meet this increased demand, the team is focusing on two aspects: efficient and controlled curing cycles to reduce costs and speed up production, and the adoption of composite tools for their ease of movement, ease of construction, and lower price, compared to standard metal tools.
THE TAPACO PROJECT Intake acoustic liners encase large turbofan aircraft engines and attenuate their noise, helping to abate concerns of noise pollution from air traffic. However, lightweighting acoustic liners is a major challenge. Te liners are made up of a sandwich structure with a perforated facing sheet and specially designed
cell structure that determines acoustic behaviour. State-of-the-art liners are mainly made of thermoset composites with the perforation completed by orbital drilling or robotic laser heads, however this involves cutting the load-bearing fibres which reduces composite efficiency and forces the designer to add more material to the design. Te TAPACO project will address this challenge by using Brunel’s self- developed Termally Assisted Piercing (TAP) technique to perforate the acoustic liners on the jet engine without the need for drilling. In this technique, the thermoplastic composite material is heated which allows the movement of fibres in the molten mix. Te TAP rig can then be pressed onto the composite material in order to displace the load-bearing fibres and create a hole pattern according to acoustic design specifications. Te technology is expected to eliminate the main disadvantage of current perforation methods while delivering a cost reduction of between 15-20% due to removing the need for shaping or drilling.
THE COPROPEL PROJECT Marine propellers have traditionally been manufactured from expensive nickel-
aluminium-bronze (NAB) or manganese- aluminium-bronze (MAB) alloys in order to operate under high cyclic loading underwater. However, these propellers require precision machining, long production times and are very heavy to transport. Brunel’s CoPropel project puts forth a holistic approach by introducing a composite marine propeller offering corrosion resistance, lightweight, tailoring of material properties, low electric signature and acoustic properties. Te project is expected to deliver technical achievements and business opportunities for maritime stakeholders which will result in a myriad of social- economic impacts, including: overcoming the limitations of composite materials in maritime, generating a new EU regulatory framework to build complex marine propulsion components in composite materials, enabling advances in composite- based vessel design and production, and enhancing the competitiveness of the European shipbuilding industry.
For more information visit
www.brunel.ac.uk/centres/ brunel-composites-centre
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