Specific skills in the MRE field

Loiretech is involved in renewable energy industry thanks to its skills in composite parts industrialization.

Our main topic is composite blades for which we propose different types of technologies for moulding and assembling the frame, root, spars and aero panels.

Products or services in MRE

Modeling technlogies :

Loiretech is one of the key suppliers of the aerospace market in large composite and invar molds manufacturing. They have developed and patented in that field key technologies such as modular moulds, vacuum sealing and tubular structures. Their industrial equipment allows them to produce molds up to 20 meters long and able to reach curing temperatures up to 180°C.

Carbon epoxy molds: Mainly used for large structural or fuselage parts, this kind of tooling is able to produce carbon epoxy parts with rapid curing cycles due to the low weight of the mould compared to classical invar tooling.

Invar and steel molds: In case of high production volume, the invar or steel tooling remains an interesting technology allowing a very large number of parts production with very limited maintenance operations. The second main advantage of this solution is the geometrical accuracy of the molding surface.

trimming and assembling technlogies :

Loiretech can hold all kind of technologies in term of trimming including water-jet cutting, milling, laser cutting and laser pitching. The principle of their technology is to offer self automated tooling which is able to ensure a very accurate position of the part during trimming or cutting operations made on CNC machines or robot cells.

Milling fixture: The main principle of this tooling is to hold the part through vacuum onto a soft surface made out of resin which prevents part surface damaging. The vacuum setting is made according to a sequence ensuring the requested accuracy. The control of the process is done with a PLC integrated in the tooling which can communicate with the milling equipment. The average accuracy we can reach is +/-0,1mm.
Assembling tooling: The main principle of this tooling is to hold the different part to be assembled through vacuum onto a soft surface made of resin a high accuracy of +/-0,1mm. The vacuum setting is made according to a sequence controlled by a PLC. As soon as all parts are in place the tooling can automatically operate the assembling session and check the final position of the assembled elements.

 

Projects in MRE

  • WALiD is a FP7 funded project willing to develop very large blades up to 80 meters long made out of thermoplastic composites in order to afford recycling operations. Loiretech tasks in the project are : defining tooling concepts and assembling processes. Follow the link: http://www.eu-walid.com/
  • HoBIT is an IRT Jules VERNE project willing to develop a one shot moulding technology for tidal turbine blades. The main interest in this project is the development of hollow blades in the objective of cycle time and cost reduction.