South African aerospace company Aerosud has just taken delivery of the world’s biggest industrialised press for making continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastics (CFRTP) products. The press will now be erected, have the requisite hydraulic and control and other systems fitted and integrated and should be operational by the fourth quarter of this year.

“This is a major development for Aerosud, and a world first,” states Aerosud Innovation and Training Centre (ITC) metallurgist Andries Uys. “We designed the press, which comprises three big castings and four pillars, plus the hydraulics, mechanics and so on. There will be a lot of integration of systems and tests. The control systems are a real challenge. We need to heat the CFRTP raw material to 400 ˚ C, and then get it into the press and close the press within five seconds. The tools fitted in the press need to be preheated as well. Its a huge technical challenge.”

Once completely set up and operational, the press will weigh some 70 t and be able to produce CFRTP parts as big as 2.5 m × 1.5 m. The company has acquired four tools to use in the development phase. However, the number of tools will be increased once the press is in full production. The castings and pillars for the press were made by a Chinese company, HZM Heavy Engineering, because no company in South Africa with a proven capability to produce these components at such a size at the required quality, was able to do so within the desired lead time for the job. Cost was not a key issue in awarding the contract.
Aerosud designed and set up a smaller CFRTP parts production press in 2010 and Aerosud is currently one of only a handful of companies in the world that can supply CFRTP components to European aerospace group Airbus. “With our new press, we are looking at manufacturing other, and larger, components from CFRTP, and for other aircraft,” explains Aerosud ITC research and technology director Wouter Gerber. “Especially for the A400M. This programme is the main driver for our new CFRTP press project.” (Aerosud already manufactures the nose fuselage linings, the cargo hold linings, cockpit linings, cockpit rigid bulkhead, the aircraft galleys and the wingtips of the A400M.)

As a result of its CFRTP expertise, the com- pany won a contract to supply critically import- ant components for Airbus’s latest airliner, the predominantly composite A350 XWB. These are the frame clips for the centre fuselage of the aircraft. These frame clips are class 1 primary parts and secure the fuselage skin panels to the fuselage structural framework.
Frame clips in different locations have different shapes and sizes, but all have the same curvature – the curvature of the fuselage diameter. “There are more than 470 types of frame clips produced by Aerosud for the A350,” reports Gerber. “There are just over 1 000 Aerosud frame clips in each A350.” The company is currently making some 1 800 frame clips a month, a figure that will increase to 9 000 a month by 2016, as production of the new airliner ramps up to steady state. (On the A350 programme, Aerosud is classified as a Tier 2 supplier. That is, it does not supply its products directly to Airbus but to US group Spirit AeroSystems, which is a Tier 1 supplier to Airbus. In contrast, on the A400M, Aerosud is a Tier 1 supplier.)
Aerosud has been involved with CFRTP, which is lighter than more conventional composites, for some six years. The company received some support, including some funding, from the Department of Science and Technology, under the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy, and designed and developed a prototype press in 2007. The company imports its raw CFRTP material from the Netherlands and Germany.