3D Woven Composites for Aeronautical Applications

Abstract

In all areas of mobility the endeavour to reduce resource consumption and the ecological footprint has established itself as one of the main, if not the main, driver of renewal and innovation. In aviation in particular, low weight is synonymous with advantages in terms of fuel consumption and emissions as well as range and payload. This goes hand in hand with better balances in terms of eco-efficiency, economy and competitiveness. For this reason, the desire of reducing weight has always been one important objective of all new developments in aerospace. For several decades now, the proportion of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics (CFRP) has been increasing as a substitute for traditional metallic components in all types of flying equipment. To further increase this proportion, economical and efficient technologies are increasingly in demand in which the fibre composite material can be specifically adapted to the needs of the structural component. This is where the 3D weaving technology comes in. Established textile process technologies such as layering, warp knitting, braiding and conventional 2D weaving only result in flat structures where there is always a risk of delamination of the layer structure in the fibre composite under load or during operation. For solid and complex CFRP components in particular, the 3D weaving technology makes it possible to produce spatially woven fibre structures as fabric preforms that can be manufactured close to the final contour and are better adapted to the loads acting on them thanks to the flexibility in the design of the fabric. The high design flexibility of 3D fabric weaves also allows connection points or joints to be integrated directly into the fabric preform. This allows the inherent lightweight potential of fibre composite construction for complex and load-bearing structures to be exploited considerably better. Using the example of a structural component of a landing gear of the VoloRegion Urban Air Taxi, a possible application for a fibre composite construction method involving 3D fabric is presented in this talk. In addition, possible further applications for structural components in aviation are presented on the basis of experimental test data of various 3D weaving samples