17 April 2020 / www.theengineer.co.uk
machine needed to achieve,” said
Giddings.
“It was a very big change to how we
specifi ed. And to be honest, it’s been
very diffi cult for the manufacturing
community…it’s a bloody good job
people have been on our team, because
it has not been easy.”
Since its inception more than a
decade ago, the NCC has worked handin
hand with founding members Airbus,
AgustaWestland, GKN Aerospace,
Rolls-Royce and Vestas, as well as on
ad-hoc projects like the composite
airbrakes for Bloodhound. One of its
key roles is to absorb the initial risk and
investment associated with completely
novel equipment, testing and validating
it, then helping to refi ne the ultimate
production needs of the OEMs. For
particularly complex products, multiple
rounds of iteration and refi nement may
be required, in close collaboration with
customers.
“A great example of that is the fan
blades that go in the front of (Rolls
Royce’s) UltraFan,” said Giddings.
“We’ve done a huge amount of the
development of deposition and pinning
and curing of those fan blades here in
the centre.
“Now that the Rolls Royce Filton
facility is open, the balance has
shifted, where they’re doing much more of the fi nal production
work and they’re really scaling up.”
In 2013, the NCC became part of the High Value
Manufacturing Catapult, and the centre is constantly
looking for new opportunities for UK industry to benefi t from
its work. In March 2019, it launched NCC Connect, a business
unit designed specifi cally to support the needs of SMEs, giving
them access to specialist engineers and composites technology
that could help transform their business. As well as providing
a gateway for smaller companies to begin exploring how they
could begin using composites, it will also potentially open up
sectors where the technology has previously been overlooked.
Due to the obvious lightweighting benefi ts, aerospace
has been leading the charge for composites for a long time,
alongside high-end automotive
applications and off shore wind. Lighter
turbine blades made from carbon fi bre
in turn require less robust turbine and
tower components, and the resulting
savings and effi ciencies can more than
make up for the material’s higher cost.
What’s more, new techniques like those
under development at the NCC could
completely transform blade production
in much the same way that Airbus
hopes to do with wing manufacture.
Other sectors have been slower with
uptake, but interest is now growing
as the range of benefi ts of composites
becomes more clear and manufacturing
techniques catch up with industry
demands. One currently niche area with
potential for future growth is nuclear
fusion, where the unique material
properties of certain composites –
rather than simply weight
– are the driver behind its
adoption.
“We’re currently looking
at a composite demonstrator
for UKAEA (UK Atomic Energy
Authority),” said Giddings.
“There are applications
for some types of composites
in a tokamak. Applications of
ceramic matrix composites,
where fi bres reinforce the
matrix of silicon carbide
ceramic. That can stand huge
temperatures and would be in
the tritium blanket.”
Other sectors set to benefi t
include oil & gas and the wider energy
industry, with composites playing a
role in pipelines, pressure vessels and
perhaps even the enormous towers for
wind turbines. According to Giddings,
there is certainly no shortage of work
for him and his colleagues at the
NCC, and that’s not likely to change
any time soon as composites become
more widely adopted outside the usual
industry strongholds.
“We’re really fortunate that we have
these exciting challenges coming in
from very cool projects,” he said.
“And that breadth is what comes
next really. It’s a big part of our mission
over the next three years. We’re not
going to be the National Aerospace
Composites Centre. We’re the National
Composites Centre.”
it’s a bloody good job people
have been on our team, because it
has not been easy
The NCC’s new Ultra
High Rate Deposition
Cell could revolutionise
the manufacture of
composite aircraft
wings
Peter Giddings, NCC’s iCap chief
engineer
/www.theengineer.co.uk