“Composites have become the material of choice for many advanced aircraft structural applications, but research is still required to identify more cost effective manufacturing and simulation tools to optimize their manufacturing and design,” said Dr. Anthony Pickett, Scientific Director at ESI GmbH. “The PreCarBi project has made a significant contribution to a new binder composite that will have a significant impact on the composite manufacturing industry and the aircraft manufacturing industry as a whole.”
Background Today, manufacturers of advanced composites use either layers of pre-impregnated plies (prepreg) to form a laminate, or resin infusion of dry textiles (Liquid Composite Molding or LCM). Generally, prepreg composites have superior stiffness, strength and fatigue resistance due to toughened resins and high fiber content, which are well dispersed in an organized fabric architecture. However, this type of materials suffers from high costs, limited shapeability, complex, expensive and time-consuming manufacturing, and limited shelf life. While LCM technologies can overcome these drawbacks, LCM relies on low viscosity resins for infusion and suffers from fiber misalignments due to textile patterns, both leading to poorer mechanical performance intolerable for many structural aircraft applications. This is why and where the PreCarBi project intervened to improve composite materials for LCM.
ESI is a pioneer and world-leading solution provider in virtual prototyping that takes into account the physics of materials. ESI has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to realistically simulate a product's behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment's impact on performance. ESI's solutions fit into a single collaborative and open environment for End-to-End Virtual Prototyping, thus eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company employs over 750 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in compartment C of NYSE Euronext Paris.