We are delighted to announce that Stelia Aerospace and Porcher Industries have been selected as a JEC Innovation Award finalist for their ARCHES BOX TP research project. Porcher Industries is one of they key partners along with Sintex NP, COMPOSTE TOOL, CETIM, AVIACOMP SA and Institut de Soudure.

Continuing to push back the boundaries within the realms of Aerospace processing techniques, STELIA Aerospace developed a full-scale thermoplastic fuselage demonstrator to evaluate the use of high performance thermoplastics within a next generation single aisle aircraft. The demonstrator featured all the typical characteristics of a primary fuselage airframe, those being thin skin, lightning protection, stringers and frames, to allow a detailed evaluation of these technologies in a true industrial environment.

The results of extensive R&D by both Porcher Industries and STELIA, the strengthening frames for the aircraft fuselage are the first to use a more cost effective 12K woven carbon/PEKK laminate as opposed to 3K woven carbon/PEKK. Through low-crimp weaving and optimization of the fibre/matrix interface, Porcher Industries demonstrated that the 12K carbon/PEKK laminates exhibit the same performance level of the more traditional 3K carbon/PEKK laminates.