ICOMAT (Bristol, U.K.) and NCC (Bristol, U.K.) have successfully produced a 5-meter aerospace wing skin using rapid tow shearing (RTS) equipment, deposited directly onto complex 3D tooling. This milestone is described as the largest and most representative aerospace validation of RTS equipment completed to date, moving the technology from flat-panel demonstrations to representative aircraft geometry.
RTS is a fiber placement process that decouples fiber steering from tape width, allowing wide material formats to follow complex load paths and 3D geometries. This approach is intended to provide a scalable route to composites production without the throughput penalties typically associated with steering fibers along curved paths. The developed wing skin is a 5.8 × 1.5-meter representative structure, almost 11 millimeters in its thickest areas and around 6 millimeters in the thinnest. The demonstrator combined iCOMAT’s deposition strategy, manufacturing methodology and robotic programming with NCC’s design and manufacturing philosophy, industry-standard tooling and validation expertise. It was built using aerospace-grade prepreg materials on complex 3D tooling and was assessed against real aerospace manufacturing requirements. Tape design, validation, programming, deposition, cure, computer numerical control (CNC) trim and paint were completed end-to-end at iCOMAT’s manufacturing facility in Gloucester.
Interestingly, shearing was actually minimized on this demonstrator to provide close proximity with existing, highly certified processes. A subsequent demonstrator is focused on exploring the benefits that true fiber shearing can achieve in terms of rate and quality.
This milestone is positioned as a step toward high-rate, lower-cost composite aerostructures for civil, defense and space applications.
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