Teijin Carbon Europe and the UK’s National Composites Centre strengthen innovation partnership in carbon fiber composite materials

Teijin originally joined the NCC as an Associate Member in November 2018. As a global manufacturer of carbon fiber, Teijin Carbon Europe is well placed to support the NCC to advance its materials and manufacturing technologies. Many of their digital automated deposition technologies were funded by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) as part of the NCC iCAP program (Digital Capability Acquisition Program, an investment program for digitalizing composite manufacturing, increasing production rates and quality while improving efficiency and reducing costs), including the Ultra High Rate Deposition Cell, which has two huge industrial robots that automate the aircraft wing production process. The robots measure, cut, lift and place pieces of carbon fiber fabric (‘plies’) with millimetric accuracy – laying 5m wide strips of composite material, up to 20m long, in one precise movement. This cuts the number of fabric components required from around 100,000 to just 150 and therefore can significantly reduce Wing component build time. This has the potential to revolutionize aircraft production and is playing a critical role in the Wing of Tomorrow – a research and development program led by Airbus to deliver the next generation of aircraft wings, which also includes UK-based Tier 1 suppliers GKN Aerospace and Spirit AeroSystems.

Teijin Carbon Europe looks forward to supporting the NCC and partners on various high-performance aerospace projects as well as contributing to the UK composites community. As a Tier 2 member, the company will provide unique carbon fiber Non-Crimp Fabrics as well as Thermoset and Thermoplastic prepreg materials for diverse applications in these projects and in other NCC development programs.

Enrique Garcia, Chief Technology Officer at the NCC, commented: “We’re delighted that Teijin are enhancing their membership with the NCC, which will enable us to explore many more opportunities for future collaboration. We have already established a fruitful working relationship with Teijin, who have consistently provided us with materials, so that we can continue to develop new processes and products across all sectors. This strengthened partnership will make a valuable contribution to both the NCC’s and Teijin’s future growth in the composites industry.”

As one strategic focus of its medium-term management plan for 2020-2022, the Teijin Group is intensively accelerating its development of mid- to downstream applications for aircraft. Teijin Carbon Europe has already been selected to supply carbon fiber based Non-Crimp Fabric (NCF) to the Wing of Tomorrow project.

Going forward, Teijin intends to further strengthen its carbon fiber and its intermediate material business as a leading solution provider for aircraft applications, targeting annual sales in this field in excess of USD 900 million by around 2030.

About the NCC

The National Composites Centre (NCC) is a world-class research centre, where companies of any size and across industry sectors can access cutting-edge technology and specialist engineers. It is one of seven centres that form the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and focuses on accelerating the adoption of high-value, sustainable engineering solutions in composites, in order to stimulate growth, and enhance capability for the benefit of the UK.

The NCC has over 350 composite specialists based at its Bristol facility and offers open-access to cutting-edge digital manufacturing technology for the design, and development of new composite products pulling through technology from the lab to large-scale production.