At Aero India 2025 taking place in Bengaluru, India, from February 10-14, Hexcel Corporation will highlight its latest innovations in lightweight, high-performance materials designed to enhance efficiency.

As a trusted partner to the Indian aerospace industry for over 40 years, Hexcel maintains a key position in the Indian aerospace composites value chain with mature composite materials, prepregs and honeycomb products having being supplied to most Indian civil, military and space programmes and this will be extended to the latest Airbus C295 and H125 programmes which will soon be assembled in India.

Recognising the industry requirement to automate next generation aerospace structures, Hexcel technology can reduce cost and increase output with materials tailored for high-rate automated production.

HexTow carbon fibre, for example, is preferred for the world’s most advanced aerospace composite applications, with a wide range of products including HexTow HM63, a continuous, high strength, high performance, high modulus PAN based carbon fibre available in 12K. 

Hexcel also recently launched HexTow IM9 24K, providing a strong value proposition for manufacturers seeking to maximise efficiency in primary and secondary aerospace.

Out-of-autoclave

In response to customer demand for high-rate manufacturing, Hexcel also offers a portfolio of out-of-autoclave (OOA) technologies. HexPly M51 is a rapid-curing prepreg developed for the production of structural composite parts using hot-in/hot-out press curing. HexPly M56 prepreg for aircraft secondary structures provides the same quality and performance from a simple oven cure under vacuum which avoids capital investment in autoclave equipment and on-going processing costs. Both systems are fully compatible with automated tape laying (ATL), automated fibre placement (AFP) and pick-and-place processes. Hexcel also provides resin transfer moulding (RTM) and infusion resins along with optimised reinforcements for the latest in liquid compression molding (LCM) processes.

Hexcel HiTape is a high-performance carbon reinforcement developed for the OOA processing of aerospace primary structures. It combines the benefits of automated processing with the cost-effectiveness of infusion technologies and delivers primary aircraft structure performance. Made from HexTow carbon fibre, it allows dry preforms to be manufactured in a fully automated lay-up process creating parts up to 30mm thick, with properties as high as those found in parts made with the latest generation primary structure prepregs.

“Hexcel’s vertical integration strategy allows it to develop tailored composite technologies that will meet the cost, maintenance and sustainability targets of next-generation aerospace manufacturers working on higher rate production for helicopter, UAV and air mobility applications,” says  Harvinder Gill, Hexcel sales director for Asia Pacific. “At Aero India 2025, Hexcel will present a diverse range of material systems, processing methods and technologies that will play a pivotal role in shaping the next chapter of aerospace innovation.”

The Hexcel team is in Hall B at stand 2.3 at the exhibition, with further sales and technical support also being available from the dedicated Composites India LLP office in Bengaluru.

www.hexcel.com