Daher confirms its leadership position in thermoplastic composite materials

Daher’s presence at this week’s Paris Air Show is the occasion for attendees to discover the company’s aerostructure components produced in thermoplastic composites – an innovative material that is a focus of Daher’s research and development efforts to decarbonize aviation.

Mobilized by numerous research and development programs dedicated to the aeronautics sector’s decarbonization, Daher has set ambitious objectives in terms of innovation for the company’s new “Take off 2027” five-year strategic plan. This has resulted in the commitment to quadruple R&D project investments when compared to the previous five-year plan.

To meet the challenges of its customers, Daher is focusing on making aerostructures lighter and developing new materials that contribute to lowering overall aircraft weight –thereby reducing fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions.

Meeting the environmental challenge: an objective in all innovation projects at Daher

Daher is devoting significant efforts to pursuing aeronautical applications for thermoplastics – focusing on the design, manufacture, and assembly of such parts. Thermoplastics are highly adaptable to production automation – in addition to being recyclable, repairable, and weldable with mechanical properties that enable the use of less material – thereby making aerostructures lighter in weight.

To strengthen its capabilities for composites of the future, Daher launched the Shap’in innovation center near Nantes, France in 2022, which is dedicated to advanced composite aerostructures.

This unique center’s goal is to continue the aerostructures research carried out by Daher during the past 10 years, working in collaboration with the ecosystem of the EMC2 competitiveness cluster and the Jules Vernes technological research institute.

Daher is developing numerous thermoplastics projects for use in wings, for ribs, with welding, and for the engine environment – in particular:

In partnership with Airbus, Daher produced an air inlet frame for an engine demonstrator. This piece, with a circumference of several meters and made up of four assembled sections, is one of the largest ever produced in thermoplastic material;

• EcoWingbox: this is a 14-meter-long composite wing project;
• Wing of Tomorrow: Daher is a partner for Airbus in this project, and is responsible for the design and manufacture of highly-loaded thermoplastic ribs;
• TRAMPOLINE 2: Since 2020, Daher has been leading the largest ongoing French research project for thermoplastics (TheRmoplAstic coMPosite for hOrizontal tall plaNE). This project constitutes a new technological breakthrough, involving thermoplastic welding by induction (without riveting);
• Carac TP: This project confirms the performance of long fiber composites with a thermoplastics matrix in the aeronautics sector: -High level of resistance (to humidity and the effects of fuel); -Assembly by welding, therefore without the need for metallic parts and the associated gain in mass; -Saving energy and time during production, which makes it possible to accelerate production rates; -Recycling -A reduced ecological impact, as a result of less material loss during production.