In the race to bring new eVTOL aircraft to market, advanced air mobility start-ups face the challenge of making rapid progress toward type certification while containing costs. Building and reworking prototypes is part of this equation, and composites specialist Greene Tweed says it is helping by cutting lead times in half. The company aims to have its materials and processes used for new production models.
At the Farnborough International Airshow, the U.S.-based group is demonstrating breakthroughs such as how its Xycomp DLF—a discontinuous long fiber (DLF) thermoplastic—is being deployed to provide rapidly changeable prototype tooling for composite parts. According to the company, this approach allowed an undisclosed defense industry partner to rework a prototype in just over seven weeks, compared with 16 to 20 weeks said to be more typical with traditional methods. For another project, the company produced more than 400 parts from a single modular prototype run.
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