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Independent contractor and occasional CE columnist Carroll Grant draws attention to a recent phenomenon in the development of automated lamination equipment: machinery capable of operating interchangeable AFP and ATL heads.

A review of the quest to eliminate both the autoclave and mechanical fasteners in composite wing structures.

Coriolis Composites’ automated aerostructures manufacturing using dry materials moves from development projects to production.

There is definitely a lot going on this week at the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget airfield. Much of it relates to composites. Here’s a brief rundown.

Heat, vacuum and/or pressure advance from debulking prepreg layups to automated preforming of dry reinforcements for faster composites production.

RTM and ATL/AFP high-rate production sites feature this composites and engineering leader’s continued push for excellence and innovation for future airframes.

In the Irkut MS-21 infused and co-cured wings, the aerocomposites industry gets a glimpse of how out-of-autoclave technologies might be applied to primary aircraft structures.

Fokker Aerostructures BV (Hoogeveen, The Netherlands), a GKN Aerospace company, demonstrated at its stand a thermoplastic composite aircraft demonstrator spoiler, fully functional and consisting of only three parts: top skin, bottom skin and a single spar.

Airbus A400M aircraft prompts new spar design and new manufacturing system designed to make it.

Integrated, multistage work cell cuts cost and increases speed, accuracy of hole drilling on the F/A-18 E/F fighter jet's vertical stabilizer.