AEROSPACE COMPOSITES MARKET: WE ARE LIGHTWEIGHT MATERIALS SPECIALISTS

Molds for Aerospace Industry and Military Molds

Lucas Industries and the PCM Innovation Group have a long and successful history of working with various specialized materials. Originally, our company was focused on the construction of nonmetallic molds and patterns for the aerospace industry but thru the last 15 years, a renowned expertise was developed for the composites market.

Advanced Composites

Advanced composite materials usage has been rapidly growing over the last 40 years in the aviation market along with many other technical areas where lighter weight components are desirable. Broadly defined, advanced composites are a combination of reinforcing fibers with a matrix of resin, either thermosets like epoxy and polyester or thermoplastics such as PEEK and nylon. Lucas Industries uses these unique materials to produce high quality tooling and specialized parts for customers in both the aerospace and commercial markets.

Physical properties, such as lower density than metals combined with excellent corrosion resistance, high strength and stiffness and attractive electrical characteristics, have allowed advanced composite materials to capture a greater share of the overall market for structural components and assemblies. Noteworthy examples are the fuselage for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, the Northrop-Grumman B-2 Bomber, the Bell-Boeing V-22 Tilt Rotor as well as many other fixed wing and rotary wing vehicles now on the market. Aeropace applications such as launch rockets, satellites and missiles have all been strong markets for these materials as well as racing performance fields like Formula One, NASCAR and the America’s Cup yachts.

Foam Materials

Lucas Industries has developed particular expertise with several families of lightweight foam core materials that are used in very specific design situations. These configurations involve composite laminates that are placed on two sides of a layer of foam and structurally bonded together. This design approach yields an extremely light structure with exceedingly good stiffness properties that can be shaped into complex part geometries.

Lucas Industries has established a controlled area to process the foam materials and can execute a variety of procedures necessary for fabricating accurate components using them.

Thermoforming, cutting, milling, drilling and inspecting are just a few of the techniques used to create three dimensionally complex parts using the foam sheets. These sheets may be comprised of different chemical systems depending on the exact mechanical properties a given customer requires. Foam stock made from polymethacrylimide, polyetherimide, polyester, polyurethane and polystyrene chemistries have all been successfully processed in the production departments at Lucas’s North Springfield, Vermont facility.

About Us :

Lucas Industries, a PCM Innovation company, is a leader and integrator in engineering and tooling solutions for the aerospace industry. The company offers assembly lines, manufacturing fixtures, molds for advanced composites and prototypes or short-run production parts. Its customers operate mainly in the aviation and space sectors, and also in the transportation and energy fields.

PCM INNOVATION Group consists of six business units, including three in Canada, two in the United States and one in France.

PCM Innovation Group is proud to count among its customers the following companies: Airbus, Alstom, Ariane Space, BAE Systems, Bell Helicopter, Boeing, Bombardier, CAE, Dassault, Euro Composites, GKN, Héroux Devtek, L3, Loral Space Systems, MDA space missions, Mecachrome, Meggitt, PPG, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce aircraft engines, Siemens, Sikorsky, Sonaca, Stelia, Triumph and Volvo.