The Marine environment presents unique challenges for composites. Seawater effect on material properties, hydrostatic crush pressure below the water, UV and waves above, and cavitation are just a few. Composites provide some unique advantages for Marine structures with established use in marine craft such as sailing and motorboats, tidal turbine blades, in offshore applications, marine renewable propulsion, decks, hulls and propellers.

Why are composites so important for marine structures?

• Economic even at low production volumes

• Low corrosion and freedom of form

• Low density and tailorable buoyancy

• Superior structural properties particularly in fatigue application

Capabilities

• Structural engineering using a combination of hand calculations, in-house developed tools, and finite element analysis with particular expertise in fatigue analysis

• Comprehensive database of dry and saturated material properties, with infusion and prepreg matrices, glass and carbon fibre forms for greater confidence in safety margins, optimisation of design and collaboration with certification bodies.

• Experience developing test matrices for material characterisation

• Experience working with certification bodies in all phases of development including design and production

• Patents pertaining to tidal turbine blade design and additional know-how in composite:metal attachment systems.

• In-house manufacture of cost-effective tooling & fixtures

• Manufacturing expertise with specialism in challenging structures e.g large single shot infusions, RTM, or very thick laminates.

Before commitment to a new program, understanding the match between functional requirements, economics and volumes is critical. Airborne can offer support to evaluate different options. Once the product is designed and proven, our range of automation solutions can be implemented at your facility or a chosen tier supplier. Airborne can support design and development, prototyping and scale-up in manufacturing, or the use of automation equipment to develop high rate, economic manufacturing processes.

Industralisation Partner

Industrialisation solutions to ensure the right material, process and equipment for the application.

Design & Manufacturing

Design, prototyping and manufacturing support to bring your product to market.

Automated Kitting

Automated ply picking and sorting to optimise nest efficiency and ensure quality with low labour cost.

Automated Preforming

Automated production of ply stacks, 2D and 3D preforms to aid higher rate production.

OpenHydro

Airborne designed the blades for the 2MW OpenHydro tidal turbine meeting the load envelope provided by the client achieving product cost requirements. Tooling, fixtures and 15 blades were manufactured with monolithic glass/epoxy laminate in places 110mm thick in a single shot infusion.

Anemoi Marine Technologies

Airborne are proud partners of Anemoi Marine Technologies since 2017. Airborne designed the first generation of rotors, achieving Lloyds Register design approval, and manufacturing the first rotors. The project involved structural engineering, manufacturing of tooling, development of the process and production of 4 rotors.

Royal Dutch Navy

Airborne developed and supplied composite ship propellers for the minehunters of the Royal Dutch Navy. Composite propellers are non-corrosive, lightweight and reduce cavitation noise. They reduce erosion, and fuel consumption through the flexibility and adaptability of the blades.

RAMSSES

Airborne manufactured a 6m high hull section made out of composite material to prove composite technology for composite vessels up to 85 m length that comply with SOLAS and class regulations. Airborne pioneered the capability to infuse thick laminates up to 6 meters in height that represent full ship hull structures. For more information, visit the RAMSESS website.