Its Cetex brand is well known for prepreg and preconsolidated laminates (also called organosheet) but also extends to bulk molding compound (BMC) as well as unidirectional (UD) and woven tapes. Through its acquisition of TenCate Advanced Composites in 2018, TAC claims more than 40 years of experience in developing thermoplastic composites. Photo Credit: TAC (top), Tri-Mack Plastics (bottom) with PEEK, PAEK added by CW. And low-melt polyaryletherketone ( LM-PAEK) is now another option.Ĭetex thermoplastic tapes are available in a wide variety of matrix polymers from lower melt temperature/performance to higher melt temperature/performance.

Since that time, much work has been done to prove out polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) and polyetheretherketone (PEEK) materials. TPCs have been flying on aircraft since the 1990s and in primary structure since 2010 - Gulfstream’s G650 features a carbon fiber/polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) rudder and elevator produced by GKN Aerospace’s (Solihull, U.K.) aerostructures business GKN Fokker (Hoogeveen, Netherlands) using Cetex prepreg supplied by Toray Advanced Composites (TAC, previously TenCate Advanced Composites, Nijverdal, Netherlands). PEEK or PEKK in future TPC aerostructures?.Thermoplastic composite demonstrators - EU roadmap for future airframes.Consolidating thermoplastic composite aerostructures in place, Part 2.Consolidating thermoplastic composite aerostructures in place, Part 1.

This is a follow-up to the recent series of articles on thermoplastic composites (TPCs) that I have written (see below) plus the thermoplastic tapes feature Jeff Sloan wrote in the February 2018 issue.

Peek material data sheet