A modern high-pressure fluid cell press from Quintus Technologies will support the Airbus widebody aircraft program at Gardner Aerospace, one of Europe's largest independent manufacturers of metallic aerospace detailed parts.

The new 800 bar (11,600 psi) Flexform press will have a central position at the Gardner facility in Mazères, in southern France, in order to meet Airbus' capacity ramp-up, chiefly driven by the new A350. Gardner's Mazères plant is conveniently located close to the Airbus assembly center in Toulouse.

“Our facility in Mazères is Gardner's center of excellence for hard metal sheet fabrications and complex assemblies, concentrating in particular on titanium alloys in the forming area,” states Antoine Crouÿ, Gardner's Head of Commodities. “Today's challenges in the A350 ramp-up and the need of being more competitive in regard to new aerospace business place completely new fabrication demands on the supply chain. With this investment, we are gearing up to meet those challenges and demands. We expect the high-pressure forming process will allow us to both reduce the fabrication steps required and to minimize the need for costly hand corrections.”

The Quintus high-pressure press, with a forming area of 700 mm x 1800 mm (27.6 x 73 inches), will introduce a number of production efficiencies. The hydroform process requires only one rigid tool half, generating significant tool cost savings and eliminating several forming operations, intermediate heat treatments, and operator dependencies.

“The added value of the high-pressure process allows tier sheet metal part suppliers to meet the quality, volume, and cost demands of major aerospace OEMs like Airbus,” observes Jan Söderström, CEO of Quintus Technologies. “We see the same trend all over the western world, where primarily Airbus, Boeing, Embraer and Bombardier are moving the supply chain to a more flexible level of forming die design, combined with modern high-pressure forming technologies.”

Mr. Crouÿ adds, “We chose Quintus as our partner not only because they supply the most advanced high-pressure equipment available, but also for their ability to offer a long-term technology transfer program and willingness to enter into a close business relationship.”