BAE Systems’ single-structure carbon fibre aircraft fuselage could cut assembly costs, increase range and reduce air fatigue.
UK Aerospace engineers claim to have produced one of the world’s most advanced aircraft structures. The group at BAE Systems’ Samlesbury production facility recently unveiled a 4:5 scale model of a Dassault Falcon business jet fuselage that has been made from a single piece of carbon fibre.
While a conventional fuselage consists of a large number of different components and fasteners, the BAE model is made from just one piece, with a few foam and carbon inserts placed in appropriate areas for additional strength.
Aerospace engineers are interested in the use of composite structural materials for a variety of reasons. Simon Baxter, a BAE engineer who worked on the project, explained: ‘Not only does a composite structure reduce assembly costs, it also makes the aircraft lighter which increases range and/or payload. In addition, there is less of a problem with fatigue as there are no metallic parts.’
Rather than using the traditional method of laying down carbon fibre plies by hand, the fuselage — jointly designed by Dassault Aviation and BAE — was manufactured by BAE using the relatively new technique of automated fibre placement. Here, a robot was used to lay individual strips of carbon fibre on to a mould. The technique is thought to result in a far higher-quality material than that produced using the traditional hand-laid fibre plies method.
BAE spokesman Paul Earnshaw said that this is the first time that the company has used the technique in the manufacture of large aerospace components.

The manufacture of the fuselage was carried out on an advanced collapsible mandrel specially developed for the project by Derbyshire-based Advanced Composites Group. The mandrel (the form around which the fibre was wound to form the structure) was specially made from carbon fibre so that it could be easily removed from the fuselage component after manufacture.
During the curing process, the mandrel and component were cured within an autoclave.
The mandrel was optimised to perform well in a vacuum as during the autoclave curing process it was sealed within a vacuum bag to keep contaminants away from the structure.
Measuring 4.5m long x 2m, the fuselage was produced as part of the £6.95m pan-European full barrel composites (FUBACOMP) programme which aims to develop European capability in fibre placement.
The structure has now been shipped to the CEAT aeronautical test centre in Toulouse, France, where it will be fitted with windshields and bulkheads and undergo a number of tests.
Dear Sirs
The Russian innovative small company named CMT is a producer water soluble material(tools) and Recofigurable Tooling Systems for manufacturing complex hollow composite parts,(lost core technology) for example composite gearbox helicopter with oil passes, automotive hollow parts (See patent WO2008148452, EP1745908, EP 1695805- “Water soluble mandrel”,belonging BMW), сentrifugal impeller(US2013011269 belonging Nuova Pignone), curve tubes, manifold, fuselage, nacelle, Inflexion tooling system (see US patent 7468661 “Fuselage mandrel” belonging Spirit Aerosystems Inc, WO 2009/127460 belonging Airbus) , launch tubes (See US2007254124 belonging Lockheed Corp.)rocket case engine, repair helicopter in field state change tooling 2Phase technologies and many other applications) This material produce and sell Advanced Ceramic Manufacturing (Aquapor, Aquacore), Nevada Composites and 2Phase Technologles Inc. The material Trade mark- Aquapor and Aquacore, marketing in Russia, but price is very high – about 30 USD per one litre. Our price about 15 USD per litre. Therefore we plan to develop new innovative for Russian project-produce tooling (mandrel, mold, state change tooling) base on water soluble material with better performance(shoter cycle time, high durability, low brittle ) and sell this product in Europe. We develop our material for use in 3D printer similar patent USA 8444903. At this time we patented our solutions in Russia. We offer collaborations with your company. Details of collaboration will be discuss. We may send you sample of our water soluble material for testing.
If you are interested in our project and material, please inform us. Excuse me for bad English, but I work without translator.
Best regards
Managing director Gennady Yakunin