At the heart of the National Composites Centre is a 25,500 sqm manufacturing facility with a wide range of technologies that are accessible to industry for the development of next generation products.
The vast workshop space is reconfigurable to suit project needs and provides our customers with a safe and secure way of working with some of the latest and greatest equipment and materials the industry has to offer.
Our facility is:
Our twin-ring braider can create components that are hollow and straight or complex cross sections with curved profiles. Our tape winder and filament winder machines can create anything from high-strength pipes to high pressure type 4 hydrogen tanks.
The NCC is the best equipped research centre for automated fibre placement (AFP), tensioned fibre placement (TFP) and automated tape laying (ATL) in the world.
Our dedicated high volume manufacturing workshop is equipped with a range of presses, including our 3600T Schuler, and a state-of-the-art injection overmoulder capable of producing complex and repeatable parts in sub 5 minute cycle times.
The NCC’s Ultra High Rate Deposition cell contains two huge industrial robots that automate the production process for future large scale, high rate composite products such as wings and turbine blades.
Our bespoke ceramic matrix composite (CMC) development facility includes material storage and processing equipment specifically for CMC applications.
We have an array of resin infusion and resin transfer moulding capabilities that allow us to manufacture parts from 10s of millimetre up to 20 metre scale, and process materials at a range of temperatures and pressures.
We have a suite of verification capabilities across non-destructive testing (NDT), metrology, and a materials testing laboratory to assess the quality and performance of a material or product.
The NCC has a wide variety of composite curing and assembly capabilities ranging from an oven or autoclave big enough to handle an aircraft wing to the fixturing and skills required to bond high-precision parts into a safety critical assembly.
In addition to a range of specific automated manufacturing technologies, the NCC has a dedicated automation cell predominantly used to create fast, repeatable, complex parts. Our fixturing capabilities allow us to bond high precision parts into a safety critical assembly.
Our team of specialist composites engineers have extensive industrial experience from across a range of sectors. We work as part of your team to boost your innovation capabilities for long-term programmes or rapid turnaround projects.
We can connect you with the right partners, business support and High Value Manufacturing Catapult expertise you need to solve your challenge.
