Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs opens Fokker Aerospace Group Glare factory

Glare ('Glass Reinforced Aluminium') consists of alternating layers of thin aluminium alloy sheets and prepreg made of strong glass fibres and epoxy adhesive. The material was developed jointly with the Delft University of Technology and the National Aerospace Laboratory in the Netherlands. Thanks to its unique combination of the best properties of metals and composites the material is lighter (by up to 25%) and stronger than aluminium, and offers higher resistance to corrosion and metal fatigue.

After 20 years of research in the Netherlands, Fokker has made the material ready for production on an industrial scale. The real breakthrough for Glare came when Airbus selected it in 2001 for the upper fuselage section of the Airbus double-deck airliner A380, which with a capacity of 550 passengers will be the largest series-produced aircraft ever built.

The application in the fuselage of the A380 requires a production capacity for 27 fuselage panels (up to 11 metres long), with a total area of 470 square metres of material per aircraft. The production facilities required for this complex process represent an investment of EUR 40 million. A 750 metres track system has been built for the transport and sorting of the aluminium sheets, using 4,000 hooks and pulleys. The material is hardened at high temperature and pressure in an autoclave, which with a length of 23 metres and a diameter of 5.5 metres is one of the largest ovens in the world. The quality of the internal bonding of the laminates is checked by means of

C-scan technology, in which ultrasonic signals are passed through the material.

 

Airbus now has 129 'firm commitments' for the A380. For Fokker, the supply of Glare for this Airbus type represents a turnover of approximately EUR 30 million a year over an expected period of several decades, starting in 2005. 

 

Kees de Koning, director of Fokker Aerospace Group, said: "Since Airbus awarded us the order to design and produce the fuselage panels for the A380 in 2001, a tremendous performance has been achieved by a large multidisciplinary Fokker Aerostructures team in partnership with the Delft University of Technology, the NLR and our suppliers. Within a very short time and working simultaneously the material has been certified, the panels have been designed, the production technology has been developed and a factory has been built in which that technology can be applied on an industrial scale."

 

Of the new technologies used by Airbus in the A380, Fokker Aerospace Group supplies not only Glare panels but also the fixed leading edges - made of thermoplastic composites - of the aircraft's huge wings. The official handover of the first of these fixed wing leading edges ('J-Nose') took place on 1 October 2003. As published previously Fokker expects the building of these edges to generate an average turnover of approximately EUR 20 million per year, spread over an expected period of several decades starting in 2004. 

 

Fokker Aerospace Group is working together with Airbus and the Fibre Metal Laminates Centre of Competence (FMLC) to investigate the possibility of using Glare also for the leading edges of the tail surfaces of the A380.

 

Fokker Aerospace Group designs and produces lightweight structural components and wiring systems for commercial and military aircraft. This group (3,225 employees) achieved a turnover of EUR 411 million in 2002, out of the total Stork turnover of EUR 2 billion.