Application of High-Pressure Resin Transfer Molding (HP-RTM) Technology in Aviation Structural Parts

 

Recently, the product trial production and process verification of the carbon fiber aircraft door side beam pre-research project jointly initiated by Fraunhofer ICT and HRC, led by ACTC (Advanced Composite Technology Center), and jointly developed by SGL Carbon, Alpex Technologies, Huntsman, Krauss Maffei and Hufschmied and other international outstanding companies in the composite material molding supply chain have been completed at Fraunhofer ICT’s headquarters in Pfinztal, Germany. The project aims to verify and explore the application scenarios and prospects of high-pressure resin transfer molding (HP-RTM) technology in aviation structural parts to cope with increasingly fierce market competition.

 

Carbon Fiber Aviation Door Side Beam

 

Fraunhofer ICT headquarters in Pfinztal, Germany

 

The project is led by ACTC (Advanced Composite Technology Center), the first open R&D platform in China with mass production molding technology of composite materials as its main research direction, which is the result of the strategic cooperation between Fraunhofer ICT and HRC. Starting from material selection, process optimization, mold function optimization and highly automated equipment innovation design integration, the entire molding cycle is shortened by 70% compared with the traditional manufacturing process, demonstrating the outstanding mass production process development and manufacturing difficulty solving capabilities of the consortium composed of multiple companies.

 

SGL Carbon biaxial bonding fabric not only ensures the firm bonding between the layers of the preform, but also provides good impregnation conditions for Huntsman resin; the preform with a thickness of more than 7 mm is molded in one step by high-pressure injection, reflecting the flow impregnation advantage of HP-RTM; the dual vacuum linkage design of Krauss Maffei and Alpex ensures the low porosity of the product; the development of Huntsman’s two-component high-pressure RTM aviation resin system provides the possibility for the preparation of aviation parts by HP-RTM process; the online detection system developed by Hufschmied can be combined with machine tools to detect the cutting quality online, and can output the detection results for subsequent qualitative and quantitative analysis

 

 

The success of this project fully demonstrates that the HP-RTM process can be used in the aerospace field, greatly shortening production time while ensuring product quality, replacing the existing labor-intensive production methods with automated production, and thus reducing production costs. Fraunhofer ICT and HRC will continue to work together to promote the application of this technology in the aviation field and help aviation manufacturing companies ultimately achieve the goal of lightweighting, energy saving, emission reduction, and environmental protection.