Premium AEROTEC puts the most modern CFC production facilities in aircraft construction into operation

In terms of aerospace Augsburg has been linked to lightweight construction for over 100 years. The design engineers of the aerospace company continued this tradition, and developed a passenger and cargo door frame made from carbon fibre composites (CFC) for the longer version of the A350 XWB (A350-1000). This innovation has now also replaced the titanium door frames used in the A350-900 model to date. This enables a significant weight saving of around 70 kilogrammes per aircraft.

Manufacturing of the components for this lighter CFC frame is now being undertaken in the newly opened hangar extension. Here state-of-the-art production plants put Premium AEROTEC’s continuous further development of CFC technology into practice. The key component of the production process is the automatic placement of the CFC strips. The use of robots ensures the necessary placement quality and accuracy in positioning the individual components. The frame is assembled by Premium AEROTEC in Varel.

Construction of the extension, which is now operational, took around a year. This created a production area of around 4,000 square metres. In parallel to the building work on the hangar, the existing plants were moved, new plants installed and operational testing successfully undertaken. The first components manufactured in the new hangar have already been delivered and production will be ramped up by autumn 2017. From then on, Premium AEROTEC's CFC door frames will be used in every new A350 aircraft.

In addition to the new door frame centre in the north of its site, Premium AEROTEC has also invested in expansion of a hangar in the south. The company has thus increased its capacity for assembling CFC fuselage shells (left and right side shells for the A350 section 16/18) by around 4,500 square metres. Depending on the A350 model, both side shells manufactured in Augsburg can be up to 17 metres in length and around 5.5 metres wide. This makes them the largest CFC fuselage components to be manufactured in Europe. Together with the floor structure, which is also developed and produced in Augsburg, and the CFC pressure bulkhead, they are used to make the entire rear section of the A350 XWB by Airbus in Hamburg.

Premium AEROTEC recorded turnover of 2 billion euros in 2016. Its core business is the design and construction of aircraft structures in metal and CFC. The company has production plants in Augsburg, Bremen, Nordenham and Varel in Germany as well as Braşov in Romania. Further information available at www.premium-aerotec.com.