Taking Flight

OEM aircraft manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing are looking for improvements to  the design of their seating, says Fibrecore, which is the UK representative for lamination technology specialist Reliant Machinery.

The key requirements include:

•    Weight savings

•    Improved aesthetics

•    Reduced cleaning costs

•    Reduced lifetime cost

Without these improvements, suppliers may face increasing  difficulty in winning new contracts from OEM and Tier l manufacturers.

Making savings on already efficient designs while at the same time improving performance at the same time can be a  challenge, particularly for companies using sewn upholstery materials.

Nonwovens, however, provide a huge number of solutions for aircraft seating companies.

When different nonwovens are combined using laminating systems, they create outstanding seating and furnishing  materials with technical properties tailored to requirements – from weight and aesthetic finish to wash  resistance, hygiene and low manufacturing costs.

Nonwoven upholstery systems provide four key benefits:

Weight-saving advantages

The manufacture of seating has  been, up to now, mainly sewing-based, which requires thicker and therefore heavier weights of foam to achieve the stiffness and flat surfaces required. By using laminating systems (bonding materials with films, webs and powder adhesives), thinner foams can be used to achieve the same level of stiffness. This provides significant weight savings for each seat.

Biological Advantages

Current manufacturing methods require a seat design that has a flat, smooth surface, with folds and edges minimised, to enable seat cleaning and disinfecting to be carried out. This, combined with the production sewing operations makes it very difficult to produce fully upholstered seat covers which can be removed for hygienic cleaning. Using nonwoven systems, a range of fully-upholstered, flexible and easy-to-remove seat covers can be produced which can easily be hygienically cleaned and refitted. Replacement covers can easily be fitted when covers become worn or damaged. The lamination of barrier and breathable membrane films can also be introduced to provide additional biological benefits.

Aesthetic advantages

The OEM aircraft producers are demanding a more modern, comfortable, and ‘automotive’ look and finish to their seating. Because of the restrictions imposed by production methods and hygiene requirements, this has not been possible in the past. The use of multiple layers of nonwoven materials allows luxurious materials such as leather to be more easily used and integrated with other finishes to achieve eye-catching design features. Using layered nonwoven systems, a softer, more comfortable, and more

Efficiency advantages

Lamination in both reel-to-reel and/or sheet format is much more efficient compared with sewing upholstery materials together. Lamination requires much lower operator skills compared with sewing and is significantly faster.

Using laminating systems will reduce the number of sewing operations needed to produce a seat and will provide significant cost savings. Additional features, such as flame retardant adhesives, can also easily be incorporated.