Combining mechanical performance and cost efficiency, a new generation of prepregs for aircraft parts is under development through collaboration between Solvay and leading Germany-based carbon fibre producerSGL Carbon.

The necessity to curb emissions and reduce weight is a pressing requirement that is only set to put increasing pressure on theaerospaceindustry. But this is a slow and lengthy process, partly due to the cost of the composite materials needed to make primary structure airplane parts.

Its with this problem in mind that Solvays business unit Composite Materials entered aJoint Development Agreement (JDA)with SGL Carbon.

Solvay Product manager Frank Nickisch said: They had new carbon fibre developments to present, and we found their performances were very interesting, so we started discussing a collaboration.

The idea was to combine the lower cost of large-tow CF (produced with a much higher number of filaments in this case, 50K instead of the standard 12K or 24K therefore with a higher throughput) with a mechanical performance profile that can meet the needs of the aerospace industry.

Nickisch added: Its more difficult to obtain demanding mechanical performance with a larger tow carbon fibre, but thats what we aim to do by optimising the interaction between the carbon fibre and the resin system. Thats where the novelty of this product resides.

Developing new CF composite materials is the target of this high level collaboration.

Aerospace manufacturers are now initiating the screening process of these new composite materials in order to use them in one of their programmes.

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Solvay and SGL Carbon partner to create new aerospace composites - EPPM