JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #111 - March 2017 - Special JEC World - o - 63

JEC WORLD 2017

MARINE

"Plug-and-play" composite ship door
Traditionally, ship doors are made of
steel or aluminium, which is detrimental to weight but also to corrosion resistance. Corrosion being a threat and
involving huge costs, it was only natural
that some alternative would eventually
make it to production.
This innovation offers such an alternative, as VABO Composites developed
a "plug-and-play" composite ship door
and hatches designed to replace existing metal solution.
The door and hatches are produced by
RTM in a modular moulding system,
which allows the production of several door dimensions at a lower cost.
The core and post-production processing is done by CNC milling to ensure
constant quality. All the other parts

are assembled and checked in VABO's
workshop to ensure that products can
be used directly in yachts, cruise ships,
commercial ships, etc.

Company: VABO Composites BV
(The Netherlands)
Partners: ICO BV (The Netherlands),
Spil Composites (The Netherlands)

The advantages of this innovative ship
door are obviously the fact that composite materials have great corrosion
resistance and are lighter than metals -
a fully equipped door with dimensions
1800 x 800 mm is less than 45 kg, i.e.
approximately 60% weight saved versus
the steel version - thus improving the
balance and fuel efficiency of ships. But
composite doors also require low maintenance as no lubrication or (re)painting is needed and they include some
additional functions.
The doors successfully passed fire resistance tests and have excellent acoustic damping and insulation properties,

meaning there is no need to add insulation or sound damping material as
it is the case for aluminium and steel
doors.

AERONAUTICS

Innovative composites fan system for aero engine
IHI Corp., together with its partners,
developed an innovative lightweight
composite system for fan cases and the
first thermoplastic composite structural
guide vane (SGV).
To increase fuel efficiency in aircraft engines, the bypass ratio (ratio between
the mass flow rate at the entrance of the
engine to the mass flow rate entering the
core) has to be increased. But this requires a larger fan case, which, if it was
made with traditional materials, would
greatly increase the weight of the engine
and negate some of the gain efficiency.
Using composites for the primary structural fan case and SGV was the route IHI
chose to achieve this required bypass ratio. Using its own developed materials, a
thermoset for the fan case and a thermoplastic for the SGV, along with carbon
fibres in both cases, IHI managed over
20% weight savings over previous-generation aircraft engines, thus contributing
to further fuel consumption reductions.

With this project, it is the first time that
thermoplastic composites are selected
for primary structure parts in aircraft
engines. This thermoplastic SGV are
manufactured with prepreg cutting and
layup at IHI's Soma Factory, and the
main advantage is that they show low
delamination after high velocity impact.
The thermoset used in the fan case was
also developed to show superior impact
energy absorption against high-velocity

Company: IHI Corporation ( Japan)
Partner: IHI Aerospace (Japan)
impact, which is one of the main criteria for both these engine parts.
This innovation was successfully applied to Airbus A320neo, powered by
the PW1100G-JM engine. This engine
was certified by FAA in December
2014 while Airbus A320neo was certified in December 2015.

No111 March 2017

/ jec composites magazine

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