Saint-Gobain: Providing the Aerospace Industry with High Performance Solutions

Saint-Gobain’s aerospace tapes are lightweight and provide safety, comfort, and high performance in extreme conditions. They are tailored for handling, optimal surfaces, and aircraft composite molding, bonding, sealing, and insulation protection. These tapes reduce maintenance costs and increase aircraft life through clean-peel removability and reliable protection from vibration, corrosion, and fluids. Additionally, they increase passenger safety with resistance to flammability, low toxicity, extreme temperatures, and high dielectric strength.

ABLE partners with only the best industry to provide high-quality products and solutions for our clients and consumers. As such, we collaborate with Saint-Gobain to provide just that for our clients in the aerospace industry.

In this article, we’ll explore Saint-Gobain’s aerospace industry offerings.

Saint-Gobain: Solutions for the Aerospace Industry

Saint-Gobain understands the importance of safety, lightweight design, and high performance in extreme conditions when developing aircraft that meet the demands of the aerospace market. Their OEM-approved aerospace tapes are specifically designed to enhance handling, create optimal surfaces, and provide protection and longevity in aircraft composite molding. Their tapes for bonding, sealing, and insulation are engineered to meet the toughest functional and performance requirements, safeguarding passengers, aircraft structure, and sensitive components. 

Saint-Gobain’s tapes also feature fast and clean-peel removability to significantly reduce maintenance costs and increase aircraft life by offering reliable protection from vibration, corrosion, and fluids. Their products also prioritize passenger safety by demonstrating flammable resistance, low toxicity, extreme temperature resistance, and high dielectric strength.

Applications 

Composite Molding

To ensure high-quality output and prolong the life of expensive tooling, materials that can withstand high temperatures and reduce mistakes are required in composite molding. Saint-Gobain offers a range of non-stick products, including PTFE molding tapes, polyimide, and PET flash masking tapes. These protect tooling and ensure clean lines and fewer defects in finished composite parts for wind energy and aerospace markets.

Thermal Spray

Saint-Gobain offers a complete range of specialty adhesive tapes to perform in various thermal spray coating processes. These products address the growing demand for consistent material solutions that improve quality and efficiency in industries like aerospace, automotive, and healthcare. Their tapes have highly conformable backings to maximize abrasion resistance, leave behind clean edges during removal, and use high-temperature adhesive for good holding power during use and clean adhesive removal, reducing post-spray rework. Additionally, many of their thermal spray masking tapes are approved for use on various Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and GE specifications.

Saint-Gobain: Exploring Flyaway Applications for Aircraft Safety 

Saint-Gobain offers high-performance adhesive tapes and silicone rubbers that meet the aerospace industry’s demand for flyaway material solutions. These materials meet FAA, UL, OEM, and military specifications. They are also flame-retardant, ensuring passenger safety. Saint-Gobain is a leader in customization and product development, providing customers with high-quality materials tailored to their specific needs.

Saint-Gobain has a couple of solutions that address different areas in the aerospace industry: 

Saint-Gobain Norseal Silicone Rubbers

Saint-Gobain’s Norseal Silicone Rubbers are designed to meet stringent aerospace standards and have proven effective in flyaway applications. The chemical composition of the Norseal Silicone Rubber products has been specifically engineered to provide flame retardance, low outgassing, and low toxicity. These properties make the materials ideal for various applications such as gasketing, sealing, and thermally insulating doors, electronics, windows, and instruments. 

The range of silicone rubber configurations offered includes different densities, including lightweight options, which are highly valued by the aviation industry, where weight is a crucial factor in fuel efficiency. Norseal Silicones are available in foam, solid, reinforced-solid, or sponge material and can be supplied with pressure-sensitive adhesives to ensure that they are ready for manufacturing upon arrival.

Saint-Gobain CHR Adhesive Tapes

Saint-Gobain’s CHR Adhesive Tapes are widely used in flyaway applications such as wide-body jumbo jet airliners, which can contain up to 170 miles of electrical conduit. These wire bundles are subjected to stress and abrasion from takeoff, taxiing, flying, and landing, which can damage conduit and wire insulation. 

CHR Tapes are designed to meet the wire harness assembly needs, such as splicing insulation films or improving abrasion resistance for wire locations throughout the assembly. The backing materials used in CHR Tapes are made of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), PTFE-coated para-aramid fabrics, polyimide, and glass cloth, providing high abrasion, excellent dielectric strength, extreme temperature resistance, and flame retardancy or resistance required for wire conduits. With a specially formulated acrylic or silicone adhesive, CHR Tapes offer a powerful solution for wire harness assemblies.

Saint-Gobain Biolink Carpet Tapes

The Biolink Carpet Tapes from Saint-Gobain have been designed to meet the requirements of leading OEM aircraft customers like Boeing and Airbus. These double-sided tapes feature dual-adhesive acrylic and are highly efficient in their performance, providing a moisture barrier and securing the aircraft’s carpet or flooring. The adhesive also allows for residue-free removal of the tape, which is especially useful when replacing the carpeting. 

This feature makes it an ideal solution for installing aircraft carpeting and non-textile flooring (NTF) that must withstand hundreds of passengers’ daily traffic and must be replaced periodically to maintain cleanliness and comfort. The dual-adhesive design ensures maximum adhesion to the carpeting substrate on one side and the composite floor on the other, with the right balance of strong adhesion and clean removability.

Saint-Gobain, a Partner for Aerospace Success 

The importance of fire retardancy in aircraft safety cannot be overstated. Electrical wiring, in particular, poses a significant risk for fires, which can quickly become catastrophic if not prevented. To mitigate this risk, fire-retardant tape with high dielectric strength can be used to prevent electric arcs from starting or growing. Another fire hazard is smoke, which can rapidly overwhelm the crew and passengers, making emergency landings necessary. To ensure fire safety, a range of industrial standards, including those published by OEMs Boeing and Airbus, the FAA, and the U.S. military, must be met.

As a leader in the field, Saint-Gobain has the technical expertise to help aerospace OEMs and suppliers navigate these standards and select suitable materials for their applications. Whether for carpeting or NTF materials, Saint-Gobain works closely with customers to engineer customized adhesive solutions that meet their performance requirements. For more information on fire-retardant tapes for flyaway applications in the Aerospace Industry, contact Saint-Gobain today.

Saint-Gobain offers high-performance solutions for the aerospace industry with its aerospace tapes that provide safety, lightweight design, and high performance in extreme conditions. Their products are tailored for composite molding, bonding, sealing, and insulation, which offer optimal surfaces, protection, and longevity for aircraft components. They offer customizable and high-quality materials tailored to the specific needs of their clients in the aerospace industry.

With their focus on safety and performance, it is no surprise that ABLE partnered with Saint-Gobain to provide high-quality products and solutions for their clients and consumers in the aerospace industry.

Eager to explore more about Saint-Gobain’s offerings for the aerospace industry? ABLE has you covered! Contact us today and we’ll be glad to assist you with your inquiries!

References:

https:// www.tapesolutions.saint-gobain.com/na/markets/transportation/aerospace
https:// www.tapesolutions.saint-gobain.com/na/technical-articles/flame-retardant-tapes-flyaway-applications
https:// www.tapesolutions.saint-gobain.com/na/markets/environment/composite-molding
https:// www.tapesolutions.saint-gobain.com/na/markets/industrial/thermal-spray