Hexcel

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Hexcel Corporation
Company type Public
IndustryCommercial aerospace, space and defense and industrial
Founded1948;76 years ago (1948)
FoundersRoger C. Steele & Roscoe T. Hughes
Headquarters,
U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Nick L. Stanage (Chairman, CEO, and President)
Products Composite materials
Revenue US$1.32 billion (2021)
US$72 million (2021)
US$16.1 million (2021)
Number of employees
4800+
Website hexcel.com

Hexcel Corporation is an American public industrial materials company, based in Stamford, Connecticut. The company develops and manufactures structural materials. Hexcel was formed from the combination of California Reinforced Plastics (founded 1948), Ciba Composites (acquired 1995) and Hercules Composites Products Division (acquired 1995). The company sells its products in commercial, military and recreational markets for use in commercial and military aircraft, space launch vehicles and satellites, wind turbine blades, sports equipment and automotive products. Hexcel works with Airbus Group, The Boeing Company, and others. [1] Since 1980, the firm has publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol HXL. [2]

Contents

History

1948–1970s

Hexcel, originally named the California Reinforced Plastics Company, was founded in 1948 by a group of engineers from the University of California at Berkeley.[ citation needed ] The company's first contract was for the research and development of honeycomb materials for use in radar domes on military aircraft. [3] In 1954, the company changed its name to Hexcel Products, Inc. The name was derived from the hexagonal cell-shaped honeycomb materials manufactured by the company. [4]

In the 1960s, Hexcel sold aluminum honeycomb and pre-impregnated fiberglass to Hubert A. Zemke and Dave McCoy for use in building skis. [5]

Hexcel expanded from military and commercial aviation to the United States space program. The landing pads on the lunar module Apollo 11 that carried men to the moon in 1969 were built from Hexcel honeycomb materials. [6] [7] [8]

In 1970, Hexcel licensed the ski from McCoy. [9] A few years later, Hexcel decided to focus on its core aerospace business and sold the ski enterprise to Hanson Boots.[ citation needed ]

1980s–2000

In the 1980s, Hexcel purchased Stevens-Genin S.A., a French company that manufactured glass-fiber and woven industrial materials. [3] [10]

In 1981, it provided materials for the nose, doors and wings of the Space Shuttle Columbia. [11] [12] In 1986, Hexcel made most of the material used in the fuselage and wings of the Rutan Voyager – the first aircraft to make a nonstop, around-the-world trip on a single tank of fuel. [4]

2000–2018

In 2017, Hexcel was selected by Airbus to supply the composite materials for the H160 helicopter's fuselage structures and rotor blades. [13] Hexcel acquired the aerospace and defense business of Oxford Performance Materials, a manufacturer of carbon fiber-reinforced 3D printed parts for commercial aerospace and space and defense applications. [14]

In March 2018, Hexcel opened its manufacturing facility at the MidParc Free Trade Zone in Casablanca, Morocco. [15] The facility oversees the transformation of lightweight honeycomb materials into engineered core parts for aircraft structures, engine nacelles and helicopter blades. Hexcel also signed a strategic alliance with Arkema in Colombes, France, to combine work in carbon fiber and PEKK. [16] The alliance will result in a joint research and development laboratory in France. The companies aim to develop carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic tapes to produce lightweight parts for aircraft. [17]

Also in 2018, Hexcel opened a carbon fiber plant at the Les Roches-Roussillon Chemicals Industry Platform in Isère, France. [18] The plant is based at the Osiris Chemicals Industry Platform. [19] Hexcel's composite materials were used as part of a new boat design used in the Tour de France à la voile. [20]

In July 2018, Hexcel opened an integrated factory in Salaise-sur-Sanne near Lyon, manufacturing polyacrylonitrile (PAN), the carbon fiber precursor, the second after its Decatur, Alabama plant.

Financial data

Annual Financials for Hexcel Corp. [21]
Annual Financials20172018201920202021
Sales/Revenue1.99B2.19B2.37B1.51B1.32B
Cost of Goods Sold1.42B1.61B1.72B1.26B1.07B
Gross Income572M581.7M650.5M243.3M248.9M


Acquisitions

Related Research Articles

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Carbon fibers or carbon fibres are fibers about 5 to 10 micrometers (0.00020–0.00039 in) in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. Carbon fibers have several advantages: high stiffness, high tensile strength, high strength to weight ratio, high chemical resistance, high-temperature tolerance, and low thermal expansion. These properties have made carbon fiber very popular in aerospace, civil engineering, military, motorsports, and other competition sports. However, they are relatively expensive compared to similar fibers, such as glass fiber, basalt fibers, or plastic fibers.

Fibre-reinforced plastic is a composite material made of a polymer matrix reinforced with fibres. The fibres are usually glass, carbon, aramid, or basalt. Rarely, other fibres such as paper, wood, boron, or asbestos have been used. The polymer is usually an epoxy, vinyl ester, or polyester thermosetting plastic, though phenol formaldehyde resins are still in use.

Pre-preg is a composite material made from "pre-impregnated" fibers and a partially cured polymer matrix, such as epoxy or phenolic resin, or even thermoplastic mixed with liquid rubbers or resins. The fibers often take the form of a weave and the matrix is used to bond them together and to other components during manufacture. The thermoset matrix is only partially cured to allow easy handling; this B-Stage material requires cold storage to prevent complete curing. B-Stage pre-preg is always stored in cooled areas since heat accelerates complete polymerization. Hence, composite structures built of pre-pregs will mostly require an oven or autoclave to cure. The main idea behind a pre-preg material is the use of anisotropic mechanical properties along the fibers, while the polymer matrix provides filling properties, keeping the fibers in a single system.

Pultrusion is a continuous process for manufacture of fibre-reinforced plastics with constant cross-section. The term is a portmanteau word, combining "pull" and "extrusion". As opposed to extrusion, which pushes the material, pultrusion pulls the material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honeycomb structure</span> Natural or man-made structures that have the geometry of a honeycomb

Honeycomb structures are natural or man-made structures that have the geometry of a honeycomb to allow the minimization of the amount of used material to reach minimal weight and minimal material cost. The geometry of honeycomb structures can vary widely but the common feature of all such structures is an array of hollow cells formed between thin vertical walls. The cells are often columnar and hexagonal in shape. A honeycomb-shaped structure provides a material with minimal density and relative high out-of-plane compression properties and out-of-plane shear properties.

A thermoset polymer matrix is a synthetic polymer reinforcement where polymers act as binder or matrix to secure in place incorporated particulates, fibres or other reinforcements. They were first developed for structural applications, such as glass-reinforced plastic radar domes on aircraft and graphite-epoxy payload bay doors on the Space Shuttle.

Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers, carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers, carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic, also known as carbon fiber, carbon composite, or just carbon, are extremely strong and light fiber-reinforced plastics that contain carbon fibers. CFRPs can be expensive to produce, but are commonly used wherever high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness (rigidity) are required, such as aerospace, superstructures of ships, automotive, civil engineering, sports equipment, and an increasing number of consumer and technical applications.

In materials science, advanced composite materials (ACMs) are materials that are generally characterized by unusually high strength fibres with unusually high stiffness, or modulus of elasticity characteristics, compared to other materials, while bound together by weaker matrices. These are termed "advanced composite materials" in comparison to the composite materials commonly in use such as reinforced concrete, or even concrete itself. The high strength fibers are also low density while occupying a large fraction of the volume.

Out of autoclave composite manufacturing is an alternative to the traditional high pressure autoclave (industrial) curing process commonly used by the aerospace manufacturers for manufacturing composite material. Out of autoclave (OOA) is a process that achieves the same quality as an autoclave but through a different process. OOA curing achieves the desired fiber content and elimination of voids by placing the layup within a closed mold and applying vacuum, pressure, and heat by means other than an autoclave. An RTM press is the typical method of applying heat and pressure to the closed mold. There are several out of autoclave technologies in current use including resin transfer molding (RTM), Same Qualified Resin Transfer Molding (SQRTM), vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM), and balanced pressure fluid molding. The most advanced of these processes can produce high-tech net shape aircraft components.

Automated fiber placement (AFP), also known as advanced fiber placement, is an advanced method of manufacturing composite materials. These materials, which offer lighter weight with equivalent or greater strength than metals, are increasingly used in airframes and other industrial products.

Epsilon Composite is a French company created in 1987 by Stephane LULL, its current CEO. Its revenue in 2021 was 33.5 M€ with 230 employees.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paolo Feraboli</span> Italian inventor and businessman (born 1976)

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