Aviation News Item: 00223

14th Oct 2009

Source: ubmaviationnews.com

GKN Aerospace is to install an industrial microwave curing oven at its facility in Munich, Germany, to research whether microwave ovens could replace traditional autoclaves for the production of composite structures. "Microwave processing promises to remove much of this costly bottleneck [autoclave curing]. It could cut processing times by 50 per cent and we are seeing evidence that energy consumption could be cut by a staggering 90 per cent," said Phil Grainger, senior technical director and chief technologist. The oven, supplied by Votsch Industrietechnik, has a working chamber of 7000L and a power of 30kW. By using microwave technology, only the product is heated and requires cooling, whilst the associated tooling and the oven chamber itself remain cool. This dramatically reduces heating and cooling times, and energy consumption. GKN has been researching the use of microwaves for composite curing since 2005.

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