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In Morgan Hill, the advanced
composite team coats carbon fibers,
aramid, glass and other materials
to form the basis for thousands of
products. In this company where they
combine the fibers with resins, it is not
hard to see the company’s connections
to centuries old weaving techniques
combined with high-end technologies.
End products like airplane skins or fire-
proof flooring materials for aircraft are
not manufactured here, but the material
that eventually becomes these end
products is.
The Morgan Hill facility is a made-
to-order operation. Customers select a
product and in approximately 6-8 weeks
it is ready to ship. The composites
produced are sheets of exotic materials
specific to customer requirements.
Some of them are produced as an unset
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epoxy, which is then frozen. When
the customer receives the product
they defrost it, set it in the mold or
desired formation, and bake it. The
components then fuse and take on
the final character as specified by the
client. The composites take on various
strength, flexibility, and heat tolerance
characteristics based on the layout of
the weave, the actual fiber components,
the amount or type of resin and the
pattern of the layout. The size and
number of the fibers and the amount of
resin also change the properties of the
advanced components. Components
laid out in a linear 0-degree pattern
are stronger than a 45-degree laminate.
This is because carbon fiber like rope
has strength in the tensile direction.
For each strand of carbon fiber there
might be thousands of threads. Resins
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
MAY/JUNE 2017
are applied to the fibers with a film that
precisely controls the amount of resin
on the material. Materials produced
in Morgan Hill ship all over the world.
Aerospace is truly a global business.
Client components vary radically. If
it is a satellite solar array or structure,
it might have to withstand 500-degree
temperature variations without
shrinking or expanding. If it is the skin
for an airplane, it must be light yet
impact-resistant. If it is beam for an air-
craft wing, it must be light, but strong
and have enough flex to withstand
the forces of landing and taking off.
For a radome (a dome or other struc-
ture protecting electronic equipment
and made from material transparent
to radio waves, radar or Wi-Fi), it
must protect the electronics, but also
allow the radio waves to pass through
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