This composite course in fabrication and repair is an advised prerequisite for our repair and manufacturing hybrid systems and is essential to better understanding advanced composite materials, processes, layup/lamination, vacuum bagging, adhesive bonding, tooling, repair, and NDI inspection.

Please, if in doubt,  contact us to assess your contact us to assess your level of knowledge and skills before enrolling.

Participants must be able to understand, speak, read and write technical English!

 

 

Personnel of technical departments of aviation maintenance having no prior or some experience or training with Fiber-Reinforced Advanced Composites and wanting to gain a better understanding of advanced composite materials and processes such as Wet lay-up, laminate panels with Glas, Carbon and aramid fibre materials, apply vacuum trough different bagging techniques, fabrication and repair.

Personnel with some composite fabrication or repair experience are also welcome to participate in this introductory course

 

Minimum required 2 and maximum 8 per course^*.

* Courses will be confirmed as running by EFC as soon as sufficient applications are received!

http://www.gmi-aero.fr/en/products/bonding-consoles-hot-bonder/dual-zone.html
To provide participants with the theoretical knowledge and practical Hands-On skills necessary to carry out basic fabrication and repair.

At the end of this composite course, the participants:

• Must be able to work independently with minimum supervision on advanced composite materials
• Must be attentive to details
• Can work according to Safety regulations, find material properties in Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and, recognize hazardous situations & materials, and can handle them accordingly
• Knows how to find material properties and is familiar and can with “Handling & Storage” of frozen glass and carbon fibre materials
• Can work safely with carbon fibre pre-pregs like UNI Carbon Fiber UD tape material and is familiar with the effects of orientation and ‘Balance’ and ‘symmetry’ in a laminate
• Knows how to work with dry fibreglass cloth and liquid Epoxy resin to impregnate wet in wet "Wet Lay-Up" (WLU)
• Can apply fundamental vacuum bagging, bleeder & breather concepts and use leak checks
• Can taper sand various taper ratios as required by OEM on fibreglass parts
• Fabricate Carbon fibre and fiberfibreglasst and single curved panels with Nomex® honeycomb core
• Performs a basic ‘Wet Lay Up’ repair on a fibreglass part

• Health and Safety (MSDS)
• History of composites, recent developments and terminology
• Handling & Storage of Frozen materials
• Material Forms: glass fiber dry cloth and wet resins vs pre-preg, weave styles
• Fundamentals of Fabrication: dry cloth and pre-preg handling, ply orientation, layup procedures, vacuum bagging techniques
• Introduction to advanced composite materials/structures
• Resin, adhesive systems: thermosets vs thermoplastics, mix ratios, viscosity, service temperature limits, cold storage requirements/shelf life limits, mix ratios, pot life, etc.
• Material Data Sheet (MDS) reading to determine Open time, Shelf life, and material
• Introduction to Hot bonders and Cure cycles (Link: GMI EARO EFC partner in Hotbonders)
• Composite awareness & reporting damage incidents
• Minor Damage assessment and reporting dents, scratches and others
• Use of tap mil-spec tap hammer
• Sanding techniques, scarf angels, ratios and  step repairs, ply cutting

Participants will be daily intensively, individually monitored and evaluated by the instructor while fabricating and repairing their parts!

SAEA-CACRC ARP Documents
During the practical, the participant can access all necessary SAE-International CACRC ARP (Aerospace Recommended Practices) documents used during this course.

• Calculate Epoxy Resin-Hardener mix ratios by the weighing fibreglass panel
• Laminate by wet lay-up using dry fibreglass warp directions and resin bleed out by using various bleeder breather schemes in a layup to take out the surplus resin.
• Lean practices how to taper sand on existing hand-out four ply panel with various sanding grids
• Cutting an existing (Room temp cured) fibreglass panel in half, taper sand by ratio  , and extend the discussion by wet lay-up repair and cure
• Learn how to thaw pre-preg material from the freezer, fill in a freezer storage form, and make kit cuts out of a roll and seal.
• Panel Lay up a Carbon fibre UD g pre-preg glass and Aramid fibre with Nomex® Honeycomb and other core materials.
• Debulking of plies according to
• pre-preg carbon using warp clock layups
• Sandwich panels layup using
•  standard practice
• Perform Vacuum bagging with Non-autoclave bleeder/breather materials using various types of wrinkles, avoid bridging and perform leak using leak checking forms to solve leaks
• Damage mapping with a tap hammer to assess the damage
• Damage removal, scarf preparation for repair using a Wet Lay-Up and pre-preg repair process.
• Work with oven cures. Ramp-up, soak and cool down

• Demonstration: "How to use  Hot Bond repair consoles" and their equipment like heat blankets, thermocouple placement and mapping.
• Work with an industrial oven or Hot bond Heat console during the practical repair

Assessment activities are built into our courses to give feedback on the achievement and personal potential and keep a record in a personal logbook per participant.

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• EFC as Training Providers will be required to monitor the student/participant's performance throughout the program. 
• Students will be administered a practical certification assessment following laboratory classes. It is recommended to use a checklist to evaluate the functional certification assessment.
• The written certification examination and practical certification assessment will cover the principles of the applicable curriculum and consist of the following:
• The written examination for certification shall contain approx. Eight (8) multiple-choice questions per course day with a maximum of fifty (50)* per exam.
• * The number depends on the use of three or four alternative answers per question
• The examination shall contain questions from each Topic listed in the outline for each Part.
• The examination will be a closed book.
• Successful completion is 75% correct answers
• Reexamination: If the student fails the written examination, they may request to retake a written test. 
• ​The written examination must not contain more than 20% of the questions on the failed exam.

• A repair training program, the required exams, and assessments based on the curriculum of this AIR and conducted by a training provider by the guidance outlined in this AIR.
• OR successful completion of the required exams and assessments based on this AIR's curriculum without completing a training program. Attempting the exam and evaluation without training is not recommended for personnel without composite repair experience.

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This course can also be held at our facility in Leipzig Germany at the facilities of our partner HEICO. If you have a need for this, please contact our purchasing manager Rolf Hovener via his page. For your company to benefit, this course can be held 'On-Site' at your facility under certain conditions.
Click on this link to the Onsite information webpage!

Courses as noted on our course schedule page can be run on request to meet your required start and end date. All listed course prices are Excl VAT. (Dutch VAT is 21%). EFC complies with Dutch tax laws. On request, companies can be sent an invoice instead of paying direct On-line with PayPal, IDEAL or credit card.

Payment is securely arranged via Mollie.nl . More information can be found on the website of Mollie.