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Dufour Aerospace and 9T Labs collaborate on Aero2 structural composite connectors

Dufour Aero­space has select­ed 9T Labs as a sup­pli­er for struc­tur­al com­pos­ite con­nec­tors such as brack­ets and hinges of the uncrewed tilt-wing air­craft Aero2, using parts man­u­fac­tured with inno­v­a­tive addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing equip­ment and advanced post pro­cess­ing tech­nol­o­gy to help fur­ther reduce the weight of the Aero2.

Simon Ben­drey, head of design at Dufour Aero­space said: “The impor­tance of the small­er parts of an air­craft is often under­es­ti­mat­ed when it comes to con­tribut­ing to weight.

“With 9T Labs, we have found a part­ner who is sup­port­ing us in this crit­i­cal area with sur­pris­ing­ly light­weight com­pos­ite struc­tur­al parts, with­out us hav­ing to make com­pro­mis­es in terms of dura­bil­i­ty and strength.”

Gio­van­ni Cavoli­na, co-founder and CCO of 9T Labs,added: “We are thrilled to join forces with Dufour Aero­space to advance sus­tain­able aer­i­al mobil­i­ty by light­weight­ing crit­i­cal brack­ets using unique, cut­ting edge tech­nolo­gies.

“Replac­ing a num­ber of struc­tur­al met­al parts with high­est per­form­ing ther­mo­plas­tic com­pos­ites will help Dufour Aero­space achieve the ambi­tious weight tar­gets for the Aero2 pro­gramme.”

‍9T Labs, a lead­ing com­pos­ites man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny head­quar­tered in Zürich, Switzer­land, was found­ed in 2018 and helps mobil­i­ty OEMs reach cli­mate-neu­tral prod­ucts by intro­duc­ing a new design and man­u­fac­tur­ing stan­dard for strong parts at low­est weight, low­er cost and zero waste.

Addi­tive Fusion Tech­nol­o­gy is an all-in-one solu­tion which is par­tic­u­lar­ly attrac­tive to help cus­tomers reduce their car­bon foot­print with envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly mate­ri­als and process­es that elim­i­nate waste and min­imise resources.

9T Labs’ soft­ware as a ser­vice (SAAS) suite is pow­ered by inte­grat­ed finite ele­ment analy­sis (FEA) sim­u­la­tion tools, allow­ing quick turn­around of opti­mised designs. In com­bi­na­tion with inno­v­a­tive addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing equip­ment and advanced post pro­cess­ing tech­nol­o­gy, it gives pro­duc­ing com­pa­nies with the need­ed tools to start their pro­duc­tion in small batch­es and quick­ly scale it up.

The com­pa­ny claims that users can reduce their time-to-mar­ket, while lim­it­ing the finan­cial risk they take.

In July, the Dufour Aero­space X2.2 pro­to­type air­craft suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ed full tran­si­tion from ver­ti­cal take-off to hor­i­zon­tal cruise, the third that demon­strates the aero­dy­nam­ic qual­i­ties of Dufour’s tilt-wing design.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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