End-to-end engineering design services deliver cost-effective, complex composite structures

Hawthorn Composites (Xenia, Ohio, U.S.), the fabrication division of Spintech Holdings Inc., delivers high-value, complex composite parts by displacing traditional fabrication methods. The company leverages low-cost dry fibers and liquid resins paired with automation for layup, resin transfer molding (RTM) and novel manufacturing methods, like Smart Tooling, to deliver equally performing composite parts at a lower cost compared to traditional methods. Hawthorn also works with a customer’s existing prepreg designs and re-engineers them to leverage the throughput and price benefits of its approach.

At Hawthorn’s booth, one can seen composite parts made for ORPC (Portland, Maine, U.S.) and the Cleaver Open Weapon Platform made by aerospace company Zone 5 Technologies (Zone 5, San Luis Obispo, Calif., U.S.) using composite fuselage parts produced by Hawthorn.

ORPC engaged with Hawthorn seeking an alternative solution to its baseline autoclave prepreg process for the manufacture of its composite strut and foil components on the company’s RivGen Power System platform. After multiple engineering sessions with ORPC and partner braiding company A&P Technology (Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.), Hawthorn determined that employing custom dry fiber, in conjunction with closed-mold RTM, would not only meet ORPC’s required specifications, but also result in significant time and cost savings.

Hawthorn incorporated A&P’s custom engineered multiaxial fabrics for the carbon fiber foil and the fiberglass strut, streamlining the layup process and enabling quicker progression of the parts through the manufacturing process. As a result of the combined efforts, the fiberglass strut component experienced a notable 20% reduction in costs, and the carbon fiber foil surpassed expectations with a 35% reduction in cost and a 70% reduction in fabrication cycle time.

Zone 5 also partnered with Hawthorn, but to develop a rate compatible manufacturing solution to build low-cost composite fuselages for cruise missile applications. Hawthorn worked with Zone 5 to initially develop a process whereby the entire fuselage (nose, main body and tail) could be manufactured as a single piece using overbraiding from A&P Technology, resin infusion and Smart Tooling. The fuselage was then machined apart to separate the nose from the body, enabling assembly and integration.

Through design iterations, the process was evolved to manufacture separate upper and lower fuselage sections that enable reduced assembly and integration times for Zone 5.

In both examples, Hawthorn was able to provide dry fiber, resin infused composites at price points and build rates significantly lower than prepreg autoclave solutions.