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PRESS RELEASE
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Tods Aerospace selected as finalist for Composites UK "Innovation in Materials" award
Tuesday, 17 October 2017

Tods Aerospace, a Unitech Aerospace company and leader in advanced composite materials technologies, announced today that they have been selected as a finalist for the 2017 Composites UK "Innovation in Materials" Award. Tods Aerospace's submission is titled "Development Of Static Dissipating Glass Fibre Composites; Applications For Fuel System Components In Aerospace."

The award submission details a new materials solution for the dissipation of electrostatic charge in composite structures. This innovation was developed specifically to overcome the limitations of current state-of-the-art products available in the market and is tailored for composite applications in commercial and military aircraft fuel systems. The resulting technology comes from an industry collaboration between Tods Aerospace and Technical Fibre Products (TFP).

"Electrostatic dissipation is a requirement for nearly all glass-based composite materials used in fuel systems for modern composite-wing aircraft," said Sean Cooper, Materials and Manufacturing Development Manager for Tods Aerospace.

"Low-level electrical conductivities are required to prevent a build-up of static charge in the structure and prevent the propagation of electrical effects through the fuel system during an external lightning strike. This process of electrostatic management is an absolute necessity to ensure the safe operation of the aircraft."

The newly developed material is compatible with aerospace qualified composite prepreg and provides high levels of sheet resistance (˜0.1 to 5 MΩ/Square) on a normally 'insulating' glass fibre based composite structure. The material is porous so it can be fully wetted by a prepreg resin system and is flexible so it can be incorporated either into the composite surface or placed inter-ply throughout the thickness of a complex composite layup.

Tods Aerospace is currently undergoing further developments to design and manufacture specific composite fuel system components and assemblies which incorporate this new and innovative technology.

The Innovation Award nominees will be showcasing their work at an open forum presentation session at the Advanced Engineering Show in Birmingham, UK on 1st November and the winners will be announced at the Industry Awards Dinner that evening.

Contact details from our directory:
Tods Defence Composite Thermoforming, Radomes, Thermal Shielding, Composite Manufacturing Services, Composite Sandwich Panels, Aircraft Doors, Fairings, Aircraft Structural Components, Computer-aided Design, Prototyping, Non-Destructive Testing, Computer-aided Analysis, Stress Analysis, Tube Assemblies
Related directory sectors:
Structural Components
Non-Mechanical Components
Composites
Airframe Assemblies