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Teijin Carbon Europe strengthens partnership with NCC

11 Aug '20

3 min read

Pic: Teijin

Teijin Carbon Europe, the Teijin Group's carbon fibre business in Europe, is strengthening partnership with the National Composites Centre (NCC) in Bristol, UK with a view to support next generation aerospace manufacturing projects. It has upgraded to Tier 2 membership of NCC. Teijin will support NCC to advance its materials and manufacturing technologies.

Teijin originally joined the NCC as an associate member in November 2018. As a global manufacturer of carbon fibre, Teijin Carbon Europe is well placed to support the NCC to advance its materials and manufacturing technologies. Many of their digital automated deposition technologies were funded by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) as part of the NCC iCAP programme (Digital Capability Acquisition Programme, an investment programme for digitalising composite manufacturing, increasing production rates and quality while improving efficiency and reducing costs), including the Ultra High Rate Deposition Cell, which has two huge industrial robots that automate the aircraft wing production process. The robots measure, cut, lift and place pieces of carbon fibre fabric (‘plies’) with millimetric accuracy – laying 5m wide strips of composite material, up to 20m long, in one precise movement. This cuts the number of fabric components required from around 100,000 to just 150 and therefore can significantly reduce Wing component build time.

This has the potential to revolutionise aircraft production and is playing a critical role in the Wing of Tomorrow – a research and development programme led by Airbus to deliver the next generation of aircraft wings, which also includes UK-based Tier 1 suppliers GKN Aerospace and Spirit AeroSystems.

Teijin Carbon Europe looks forward to supporting the NCC and partners on various high performance aerospace projects as well as contributing to the UK composites community. As a Tier 2 member, the company will provide unique carbon fibre Non-Crimp Fabrics as well as thermoset and thermoplastic prepreg materials for diverse applications in these projects and in other NCC development programmes.

Enrique Garcia, chief technology officer at the NCC, commented: “We’re delighted that Teijin are enhancing their membership with the NCC, which will enable us to explore many more opportunities for future collaboration. We have already established a fruitful working relationship with Teijin, who have consistently provided us with materials, so that we can continue to develop new processes and products across all sectors. This strengthened partnership will make a valuable contribution to both the NCC’s and Teijin’s future growth in the composites industry.”

As one strategic focus of its medium-term management plan for 2020-2022, the Teijin Group is intensively accelerating its development of mid- to downstream applications for aircraft. Teijin Carbon Europe has already been selected to supply carbon fibre based Non-Crimp Fabric (NCF) to the Wing of Tomorrow project.

Teijin intends to further strengthen its carbon fibre and its intermediate material business as a leading solution provider for aircraft applications.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (SV)