Picture: www.calliduspr.com<\/p><\/div>\n
Philippe Odouard: It’s probably a bit longer term. There’s a lot of hype at the present time with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. [Laughs.]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nFrankly, when we started on that journey, we didn’t know that this would make that much noise around the place. The fact is that that particular technology I described, the hydroclave, is actually very good for space applications. Three reasons for that.<\/span><\/p>\nThe first one is that it actually allows you to make very complex shaped parts. Whereas most of what you do normally in carbon fibre you really need to do shapes that have only mild curvatures. Because we have that massive pressure, we can actually do very complex parts and not even have to adjust them or mill them or do any other processes. So for space, it’s interesting, because when you talk about aircraft, you want these semi-flat parts, but for a satellite no one cares. So in that case you have a lot of these parts that are complex in terms of shape.<\/span><\/p>\nThe second advantage is that because you have so much pressure, you can actually do a higher level of fibre compared to matrix. What gives you the strength is the carbon fibre, not the matrix, which is there to keep it together. The maximum you can do typically in the fibre ratio in normal carbon fibre is about 60 per cent fibre, 40 per cent matrix, so we believe we can get to 75 per cent and possibly even 80 per cent, so that would reduce your weight by about 20 per cent. For space it’s massively interesting.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd the third one is a particular thing that happens in space. Because you have no air around and no pressure around you, if you consolidate or cure things in an autoclave for instance, which is what is used normally, you’d very quickly have bubbling. You’d have the volatiles basically getting back into their normal shape and then bubbling up, which is called degassing. If you do that compression at 300 bars, degassing is just not happening. So for space, it’s really, really important, especially if you have things that are staying there a long time. You don’t want pitting in your parts as you go.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen we explained that to a few people, and Skykraft in particular, they were very interested.<\/span><\/p>\nWe’ve gradually started talking to other people that are in that space industry and you might continue following us on that because more news is going to come. It will probably take time. But on the other side, space is actually becoming a lot more democratic. You have smaller launches, smaller satellites, more applications, lower costs of course with the competition that you have with the private entities like SpaceX and others. So all this is a booming industry that is coming up and we think we have something very unique for them.<\/span><\/p>\nFeatured image: Lighthouse Business Innovation Centre<\/a>\/Youtube<\/p>\nSubscribe to our free @AuManufacturing newsletter <\/b>here<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brent Balinski speaks to Xtek\u2019s managing director Philippe Odouard about the company\u2019s curing process – which it says can produce lighter, stronger composite parts – and its potential applications in defence, space and elsewhere. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,63],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Pressure and performance: Australian company pushes to be a global leader in armour - Australian Manufacturing Forum<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n