Just a few short weeks after announcing Roussillon / France as the site of its second European plant (see Plasteurope.com of 03.10.2014), US carbon fibre producer Hexcel (Stamford, Connecticut; www.hexcel.com) has made yet another investment in Europe. The company held the ground-breaking ceremony for a GBP 6m (about EUR 7.6m) R&T facility and capacity expansions at its site in Duxford / UK on 13 November. Construction of Hexcel’s new Innovation Centre, where the company’s European centre for research and technology is located, is expected to be completed by 2016. The expansion will lift the existing workforce of about 550 by up to 100 in 2017.

The UK site is the company’s largest centre for research into resin systems and adhesives. The decision to raise output, Hexcel said, is closely related to its having been awarded a large contract by Airbus to supply all of the carbon fibre prepregs for the "A350 XWB" primary structures. Duxford also serves as the group’s centre of excellence for process technology and houses its research operations into new composite materials. The site, which produces resin films, structural adhesives, non-metallic honeycombs and a range of prepregs, had a turnover of USD 260m in 2013.

As part of the investment, Hexcel will expand the site’s art mixing and filming systems to enable bulk production of the materials required for the Airbus A350 XWB. The company said that the resin films it produces in Duxford are combined with carbon fibre and then converted into unidirectional prepregs at its plants in France, Spain, Germany and the US. In addition, part of the GBP 6m financial injection will go towards a new prepreg tower, to be qualified by 2017, aimed at meeting rising demand for aerospace programmes. Hexcel will also use some of the funds to raise honeycomb capacity at the site to meet growing demand for lightweight core materials in sandwich constructions.