STAMFORD, Conn. — February 25, 2020 — At this year’s JEC World in Paris in May, Hexcel will highlight the growing need for innovations in composite materials to support the emerging Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market.
Urban air mobility — urban transportation systems that move people by air or enable cargo deliveries — is the next big transportation innovation. Similar to taxis or ride sharing today, UAM will help remove congestion from our streets and provide a convenient, rapid method for travel in urban centers as well as in remote areas.
Advanced composite materials will be at the heart of UAM vehicles by providing lightweight, efficient, reliable, and cost-competitive options for manufacturing. “Materials have been a key driver of efficiency for aircraft today, and they will be even more important for the emerging UAM marketplace,” said Imad Atallah, director of Strategic Marketing for Aerospace and Urban Air Mobility at Hexcel.
Already, Hexcel is a leader in advanced composite materials for the aerospace market and is a key supplier of composite materials to the automotive industry. So, the company is well positioned to offer solutions to meet the critical needs of high-rate and quick-part manufacturing cycles, in addition to low-cost needs for this space. Hexcel’s materials solutions approach for UAM is to make it greener and more sustainable, safer, more comfortable, and more affordable.
Hexcel’s broad range of carbon fiber and HexPly® prepreg solutions, including snap cure thermosets and thermoplastics, coupled with the most qualified positions on aerospace programs in the industry make the company a trusted partner for UAM. In addition to offering composite materials from carbon fibers, prepregs, honeycomb and reinforcements, Hexcel’s best-performing market solution in noise absorption on aircraft jet engines, Acousti-Cap®, provides a strong position of innovation to solve one of the most critical problems in the UAM space – community noise. “We are applying our technologies to the unique needs of urban air mobility vehicles,” Atallah said.
Hexcel’s ability to bring materials technology from the aerospace and automotive industries represents a unique strength in solving the critical challenges of UAM, especially around high-rate manufacturing, low-cost materials, light weighting, and noise. “Both thermoplastics and quick-cure thermoset materials are expected to have applications on UAM vehicles,” Atallah said. Furthermore, Hexcel’s broad product portfolio including unsized carbon fiber has proven to be the most compatible with thermoplastic resins from a consolidation perspective.
Visit the Hexcel booth at JEC World 2020, Hall 5, Booth J41.
Posted February 25, 2020
Source: Hexcel Corp.
