LE BOURGET, France—Albany International Corp. subsidiary Albany Engineered Composites (AEC) recently delivered the first components it is producing for the Airbus Wing of Tomorrow Wing Box Assembly demonstrator program, according to a release from Albany International.
Albany Engineered Composites’ collaboration with Airbus is said to represent an important part of its strategic efforts aimed at developing high volume industrialized and sustainable manufacturing technologies for next generation Airbus aircraft.
During the last three years, AEC has been collaborating with Airbus on multiple government supported R&D programs, including the Wing of Tomorrow and Clean Aviation. Albany Engineered Composites applied its innovative 3D woven technology to the wing application. Along with AEC’s industrialized capabilities in high-rate RTM processing, the technology will produce high tolerance integrated parts, such as wing ribs, targeting cost, weight, and performance benefits in next generation aircraft, the release said.
“Advances in digitalization, together with composite manufacturing innovations, are demonstrating cost effective and higher-rate [manufacturing] with reduced waste and energy consumption to produce next generation sustainable and lightweight composites products,” said Brent Stevenson, senior vice president of research and technology for AEC, in the release.
AEC President Greg Harwell also commented on the company’s work with Airbus.
“We are proud and excited to be working with Airbus to deliver lightweight and high-performing composite wing components that contribute to the extremely important sustainability goals of the aerospace industry,” Harwell said in a statement. “Developing composite manufacturing technologies capable of reducing factory footprint, capital equipment and production costs, while supporting future rate, weight, and performance goals, provides an excellent platform to execute our mission to be a partner of choice to the aerospace OEMs and Tier-1s.”