Composites in Aircraft Interiors, 2012-2022 - High Performance Composites

Composites in Aircraft Interiors, 2012-2022 - High Performance Composites:

Composites in Aircraft Interiors, 2012-2022 High Performance Composites IThat any mention of modern commercial transport aircraft involves at least passing attention to advanced composites is almost inescapable. Prized for reducing weight and, therefore, fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, composites have, in 40 years, gone from single-digit percentages to 33 percent or more of airframe weight on recent platforms. Today, even long in-service, single-aisle passenger jets boast from a few hundred to a few thousand pounds of composites per airframe. And during the next decade, the production of advanced composites for airframe components is expected to grow by more than 200 percent worldwide. Aircraft passengers, however, see the plane’s airframe from the concourse windows. Far more important to the ticketed traveler’s experience is the aircraft’s interior. Subject to many of the same performance demands that drive those who build aircraft primary structures, designers and manufacturers of aircraft interiors have turned to composite materials en masse. Overshadowed by composite airframe structures, interior composites are no less crucial to the operating-cost and revenue-generation discussion. In fact, for many commercial aircraft, the weight of composite interiors significantly exceeds the weight of composite airframe structures!