COMPOSITES
The growing need for lighter, stronger and greener alternatives makes the fundament for our activities in the Baltic region. Together with our partner Hexcel, we offer the widest range of products and technologies to help the industry meet existing requirements, but also the future requirements from a global market.
We propel the future of flight, energy generation, transportation and recreation through our continuous investment in developing quality products for the advanced composite market. Our portfolio includes Carbon Fiber, Fabrics/Reinforements, Prepregs & Resins, Adhesives, Honeycomb and technologies for producing composite tools and production moulds. Together with our portfolio of liquid composite resins, and structural adhesives from Huntsman Advanced Materials, we are able to meet the majority of challenges seen in the modern composite industry.
With technical skilled people on ground in all the Baltic countries, we are well positioned to give support in your composite projects from the idea to the final part.
Hexcel is not a brand only for the Aerospace market. With our large capacity, and know-how in making multiaxial reinforcements, we are a leading supplier to the maritime sector as well as sports, automotive, energy, oil & gas, infrastructure, machinery and recreation.
HEADING
It all starts with a primary building block. The primary building blocks for carbon fiber composite materials begin with Hexcel’s HexTow® carbon fiber which is the preferred carbon fiber for the world’s most advanced industrial and aerospace applications. Hexcel is a leading raw material producer of carbon fiber under the brand of HexTow®. The HexTow® products are used either as continuous carbon fiber or as chopped carbon fiber. The HexTow® products are also the key raw material used to produce our advanced carbon fabrics and multiaxial reinforcements
Hexcel manufactures a complete line of woven fabrics and multiaxial reinforcements, available in a range of weave styles and fiber orientations. We offer our products in most common fiber types such as carbon, glass, aramid, ceramic and natural fiber. The key brands include HexForce®, PrimeTex®, HiTape® and HiMax® Reinforcements. The portfolio offer market leading solutions to most known production techniques, and to most industrial markets and applications.
HexPly® XF2 is our latest surface technology. HexPly® XF2 is a surfacing prepreg that is easy to handle with good drapeability and tack to adhere to the mold tool for a highly efficient lay-up process. HexPly® XF2 prepreg also gives an excellent surface finish, with no pinholes or visible overlaps, providing excellent out-of-mold quality that greatly reduces post-processing operations, saving time and labour costs.
HexMC® molding materials enable composite parts to be manufactured for:
“Applications where complex 3-D shapes limit the use of typical fiber reinforced matrices/reinforced laminated composites; Use for applications where previously metal was the only solution; Parts with abrupt change of cross-sectional thickness; Applications where co-curing of elements is desired, such as metal inserts or mixing with other materials and more. Use with automated production process similar to SMC molding; Production of parts with zero material waste”
- The aerospace industry is still the world’s biggest consumer of prepregs. Other industrial sectors like automotive, maritime, sports, military and rail are taking advantage of the innovations already made in the aerospace industry, developing the prepreg technology further into new applications and markets. We offer the most complete range of both aerospace and industrial grade prepreg products on the market. Hexcel’s range of resin formulations includes a wide range of epoxies for highly loaded parts and supreme toughness, BMI systems for high temperature performance, phenolics for fire, smoke and toxicity (FST) performance and cyanate esters for space structures and satellite applications. Our prepreg products are marketed under the brand of HexPly®, HexPly Snap-Cure, HexPly SuperFIT™ and HexPly SuperCap™. The complete portfolio to most known markets and applications.
- Besides our range of prepreg technologies we also offer liquid solutions. Our liquid systems are mostly used with Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) techniques to produce “out of autoclave” parts for the aerospace industry. The Hexcel portfolio of liquid resins is also completed with the large range of liquid composite resins we represent from Huntsman Advanced Materials. With Hexcel and Huntsman we can offer a market leading solution to most composite applications produced with liquid resin technology.
- Modipur® Polyurethanes: If you need to produce cost-effective high performance components, in medium to high production volumes, then Modipur® could be your solution. Modipur® polyurethane systems enable complex shapes to be achieved at low cure temperatures and in rapid production cycles. With the Modipur® technology we aim to tailormade a solution for the customer. Only when it is possible to match the chemistry with the production process the real advantages can be achieved, and the customer can differentiate and stand out with higher quality parts and a better cost performance.
Hexcel supplies a wide range of formulated two-component systems that are used for sports, automotive and other industrial applications. The Modipur® range includes semi-flexible and integral foams with closed or open cell structures. The products are used as core materials, as insulation and/or for their adhesive properties, in sports and industrial applications.
HexFlow® is a polyurethane laminating resin that provides outstanding mechanical properties. HexFlow® is ideal for applications requiring high stiffness, short cure cycles at moderate temperatures and with a class A surface. - HexMC® Molding Composite: HexMC® is a high performance molding material, suitable for the production of complex shaped parts and specifically designed for compression molding. With long carbon fibers (50mm) and a low resin content, HexMC® provides better mechanical properties than any other short or long fiber molding compound.
Hexcel manufactures a wide range of primers, film adhesives, foaming adhesives, paste adhesives and liquid shims for metal-to-metal and composite bonding applications. The range of Hexcel adhesives is truly completed with our offering of structural adhesives from Huntsman Advanced Materials and Araldite®.
Hexcel is truly the market leader in aluminium and Nomex (aramide) Honeycomb core materials for the composite industry. Any structure requiring exceptional stiffness combined with minimal weight gain can benefit from HexWeb® honeycomb. HexWeb® is a lightweight core material that is available with regular hexagonal cells or in over-expanded (OX) form. It offers versatility in density, cell size and other properties and is also suitable for high volume manufacture. In addition to the aerospace market, Hexcel honeycomb is used in sandwich constructions for a wide range of industrial applications – from boat hulls and train interiors, to sports equipment and car chassis and body panels. HexWeb® aluminum honeycomb is also used for its excellent energy absorption characteristics, for example in automotive crash test barriers. Our products falls in under three main categories as HexWeb® Honeycomb, HexWeb® Engineered Core and HexWeb® Acousti-Cap® Sound Attenuating Honeycomb.
Machinable tooling materials that combine lightweight design with high tolerance accuracy. HexTool® composite tooling material combines tolerance accuracy with extreme lightness. HexTool® is Hexcel’s patented composite tooling material that, for the first time, enables the tolerance accuracy achieved with metals to be combined with the extreme lightness of carbon fiber composites. HexTool® molds are easy to repair and are simple to modify. This new concept for lightweight, efficient large-scale tools is cost-effective compared with conventional composite tools and metal molds, especially those made from Invar®. Since the launch of HexTool®, several leading tooling engineers have used the material confirming the benefits of the technology. They have noted that dimensional stability is maintained, at tolerances very close to those achieved with metal tooling and that vacuum integrity is assured, even in heavily machined areas. Long tool life, ease of use, and the machinability of cured structures are some of the primary reasons HexTool® is being chosen for the tooling for parts on new generation aircraft worldwide
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- HexTool® M61 Tooling Compound comprises randomly layered strips of uni-directional prepreg that have been consolidated into continuous rolled goods. It can be utilized for multi-ply quasi-isotropic hand lay-up and subsequently CNC milled to close tolerance. Today we have two key products branded on the market as HexTool® M61 and HexTool® M81;
HexTool® M61
has proved to be dimensionally stable with the ability to hold vacuum integrity before and after machining – and after more than 500 part cure cycles. Fabricated from Hexcel’s BMI resin, HexPly® M61, HexTool® M61 tools are ideally suited for curing carbon fiber/epoxy parts at 180°C/350°F. HexTool® tools are lighter and more energy efficient than those made from steel or Invar®. They are also cost-competitive – and provide a tighter mold tolerance – than standard composites. Since the launch of HexTool®, several leading tooling engineers have used the material confirming the benefits of the technology. They have noted that dimensional stability is maintained, at tolerances very close to those achieved with metal tooling and that vacuum integrity is assured, even in heavily machined areas. Long tool life, ease of use, and the machinability of cured structures are some of the primary reasons HexTool® is being chosen for the tooling for parts on new generation aircraft worldwideHexTool® M61 Tooling Compound comprises randomly layered strips of uni-directional prepreg that have been consolidated into continuous rolled goods. It can be utilized for multi-ply quasi-isotropic hand lay-up and subsequently CNC milled to close tolerance.
HexTool® M81
Composite tooling material for components cured at 120°C to 150°C (250°F to 300°F). HexTool® M81 Tooling Compound is randomly layered strips of uni-directional prepreg consolidated into continuous rolled goods. It can be utilized for multi-ply quasi-isotropic hand lay-up and subsequently CNC milled to close tolerance. HexTool® M81 has proved to be dimensionally stable with the ability to hold vacuum integrity before and after machining. Fabricated from Hexcel’s epoxy resin HexPly® M81, HexTool® M81 is ideally suited for 120°C to 150°C (250°F to 300°F) curing carbon fiber tools and can also tolerate several cure cycles at 355°F (180°C). The resulting tools are lighter and more energy efficient than tools made from steel or aluminium. They are also cost-competitive and provide tighter mold tolerances than standard composite tooling. HexTool® means that accurate and expensive master molds are no longer necessary. Hexcel has evaluated cost-effective master mold solutions.
Within the level of service and support available form Hexcel, we are also able to support key projects with ready to use parts & structures to precise customer specifications. Hexcel manufactures and markets lightweight, high-strength composite structures and assemblies for commercial and military fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, business jets, UAVs, and spacecraft. We have a history of documented performance for aerospace and defense contracts, working for Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Sikorsky, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Lockheed Martin.
Finished composite parts are lighter than metal, resist rust and corrosion, and are able to be made into complex shapes. They also incorporate tailored ply shapes and material types to increase toughness and strength to support a longer lifespan.
Hexcel is leading the way in developing technology into 3D printing of final structural parts with the HexAM® platform. HexAM® additive manufacturing is a sophisticated merging of PEKK high performance thermoplastic and the world’s most robust additive manufacturing technology, delivering a range of fully functional, end-use parts and components. We are fundamentally improving the way the world’s aircraft components are manufactured, fulfilling critical development and production contracts for 3D printed parts in a range of aircraft applications, combining high performance with significant weight and cost savings to our customers. This technology is ideally suited for end-market applications where functional complexity and weight reduction can have a substantial and positive impact on performance, while also yielding cost and energy savings. Our products deliver sustained value for our customers. Have a look at our video demonstrating the HexAM® additive manufacturing technology.
We deliver a wide range of vacuum bagging and composite tooling materials for prepreg, autoclave, resin infusion and wet lay-up processes. Vacuum consumables tailormade for the different composite production processes in use. Bagging films, release films, pressure sensitive tapes, mold releases (non-liquid), release fabrics & peel plies, breathers & bleeders, combination products, vacuum bag sealant tapes, vacuum valves & hoses and resin infusion products.