Wallwork Group at Farnborough International Airshow
Stand G1, Hall 4, 19-25th July, 2010

Advanced heat treatment and hard coating technologies, which reduce flying weights, cut specific fuel consumption and the carbon footprint, and achieve erosive wear reductions of up to 75 per cent , will be shown by the Wallwork Group at Farnborough International Airshow  2010.

  In addition to working with Sheffield University, NMB-Minebea and Lufthansa Technik on collaborative projects, Wallwork Group and subsidiary Tecvac have recently invested over £1 million in enhanced facilities to serve aerospace sectors.  This includes contract degreasing services, NADCAP approved heat treatment plant, and development of advanced hard coatings for aerospace.

  Tecvac's Cambridge facility has been enhanced by an erosion test rig to evaluate performance of hard coated engine and landing gear components, with support from a specialist erosion test engineer.  Tecvac Nitron Flight coatings already have substantial operational histories with advanced engines in civil and defence projects.

  Some of the coatings for turbine blades have been shown to reduce erosive wear by 75 per cent compared with surface coatings currently in service, and a joint project with Lufthansa Technik has demonstrated potential fuel burn (specific fuel consumption (SFC)) reductions of 0.3 per cent or more.  This could lead to an A340 Class aircraft saving well over 100,000 litres of fuel per year in normal civil duties, reducing the annual carbon footprint by around 250 tonnes.

Tecvac's comprehensive range of hard coatings will be on show, including the well established Nitron Flight coatings which offer a choice of erosion resistance, high temperature performance and extremely low friction coefficients.  Tecvac coatings include Diamolith (DLC), Nitron A (TiN-based), Nitron B (CrN-based) as well as Nitron CA (CrAlN-based), which has been shown to operate effectively at temperatures of up to 1000oC.  Tecvac will also show the latest vacuum brazing technology, which can handle complex assemblies up to 1.5m cube, with more than 15,000 individual parts.