STUNNING | World’s largest known thermoplastic aircraft structure

Introduction to the STUNNING Cleansky2 project

An 8.5 meter long fuselage skin made of thermoplastics has been produced by automated fibre placement. Within the MFFD framework Royal NLR, together with GKN Fokker (lead), TU Delft, and Germany’s Diehl, have taken on their own project called STUNNING. Their goal is to demonstrate and validate how the use of composites, namely thermoplastics, can help realize a next-gen fleet of aircraft capable of offering the same strength and durability of steel and aluminum, while drastically reducing the total time of production and maintenance activities, as well as the overall weight of aircraft and the subsequent emissions.

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