NCC3

The NCC3 project allowed the National Composites Centre to create additional space to enable the delivery of upper cover development as part of Airbus’s Wing of Tomorrow programme (WoT). This culminated in the manufacture of three full scale narrowbody-sized composite upper wing covers. These covers included integrated features and were created from dry fibre and infused in a single infusion, creating nett edge upper covers for assembly and test as part of the WoT.

The facility created by the NCC3 project was utilised to develop the underpinning research pyramid of development into dry fibre wing cover manufacture in terms of preform deposition, forming, structural and system feature integration, infusion and cure, culminating in automated NDT and metrology.

The provision of the facility has enabled many supply chain companies to be engaged as part of WoT supplying multiple services including automation, digital services, tooling, consumables and composite materials.

Follow on programmes that have grown from WoT which include Wing Industrial Accelerator and CoSINC, are now utilising the facility provided by the NCC3 project.