Machined Composite Parts and Engineering Materials - Development

Development of Tufnol laminates

Since our early years, new base materials have been continuously introduced right up to the present day, to include various grades of paper, cotton cloth, polyester, advanced woven glass fabrics and high performance materials such as carbon fibre and Kevlar. When combined with our own advanced resin formulations, TUFNOL laminates can possess unrivalled properties in a wide variety of applications.

Technical investment

Investment in the newest technologies is crucial to our progress, currently represented by our new co-ordinate measuring machine for the highly accurate measurement of components. This enables us to ‘reverse engineer’ an array of legacy components where drawings no longer exist. Accurate measurements allow us to translate components into a 3D electronic drawing which is then programmed into our latest CNC machine tools

Machined Composites components

Our technical capability combines high performance up-to-date CNC equipment with an unmatched depth of experience in machining laminated composites and resin bonded materials and other engineering plastics.

Bespoke applications for our customers

Many of our customers are globally recognised names who have stayed with us for the long term. They often come to us with technical issues and bespoke requirements for our engineers to solve, for example:

Airbus – at a time when Airbus were developing a new aircraft they identified a need for a unique material and came to Tufnol with their requirements. Working to a tight time schedule, our engineers worked to formulate the new material to Airbus’s specification.

They created a hybrid from two existing materials which exactly met the technical needs of the application. The newly invented material was utilised in components for the fuel tank of the A400M.

New Applications

At Tufnol we are proud of our reputation for inventively increasing the versatility of our resin materials, laminated plastics and composites to meet modern needs. Our high repute with customers is also based on our ability to produce bespoke materials in the field of engineering plastics to their specific requirements.

New resin infusion process

The new resin infusion process developed at Tufnol will widen our product offering and enable us to enter new markets such as industry sectors requiring larger, moulded and finished composite structures. The resin infusion process enables us to create a moulded, finished product with very little machining or other expensive processes.

stronger laminate is created because the infusion process can mould shapes with a much better fibre-to-resin ratio thereby creating a lower void content. It is also a more environmentally friendly process as there are no solvent emissions into the atmosphere. The process will produce applications for all our key markets – rail, automotive, aerospace, marine and tidal energy.