COMPOSITE INNOVATIONS ADD STRENGTH TO THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY

摘要

Aerospace manufacturers have achieved weight reductions of almost 50% in the latest generation of commercial aircraft, but has lightweighting with composite materials now reached its limit? Not according to Phil Burge, marketing and communications manager at SKF, who explains how new design approaches are extending the potential for composites to replace metal, even in structural interface components. Manufacturers are increasingly using light composites in their designs, driven largely by demand for more efficient performance and lower emissions. However, while these can provide plenty of strength when subjected to in-plane loading (loads applied along the direction of the component's mounting interface), their capacity for out-of-plane loading (perpendicular to the mounting interface) tends to be much lower.