Cheaper, Lighter, Safer Composite Materials for Aircraft Interiors
The IntAir project successfully completed its activities in October 2018. For further information please contact us.
IntAir looked at refining materials and upscaling the manufacturing process for a new generation of aircraft interior composites that are cheaper, lighter and safer than the toxic, carcinogenic materials that are currently used.
Composite materials are well-established for aircraft interior sidewalls, galleys, lockers and seating. To meet the strict fire and weight requirements for aircraft interiors, the current solution is to use a fire resistant composite made of phenolic resin with carbon or glass fibre reinforcement. However, there are 3 major problems with phenolics:
Most composite aircraft components are manufactured from prepreg, an intermediate material where the resin is pre-impregnated into a reinforcement fabric, for subsequent moulding into parts.
As a direct substitute for phenolic, IntAir focussed on a prepreg using polyfurfuryl alcohol (PFA), a bioresin derived from crop waste, which offers the improvements in each of the 3 areas:
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