CTC celebrates 20th anniversary, opens new extension
On the 14 October, the Composite Technology Center (CTC GmbH) in Stade, Germany, hosted an event to celebrate 20 years in operation as well as the official opening of its new building extension.
CTC GmbH was founded in 2001 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Airbus Operations GmbH. In 2004 it moved from a former German Armed Forces maintenance hall on the site of the Airbus Stade plant to its current location at the Stade Technology Centre, which was built by Projektentwicklung Stade GmbH & Co. KG and is leased to CTC.
CTC was established to answer an increasing need for application-related research and development in composites and a decoupling of these activities from the operational production processes at the Airbus Stade plant in order to realise innovations in an agile, flexible and cross-industry manner. The focus was on the automation of composite technologies as well as research and development in the field of manufacturing engineering, which did not exist at Airbus at that time, especially in relation to the processing of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) into large components and structures for commercial aircraft.
The main initiators of the CTC were the Airbus plant manager at that time, Prof. Dr. Dieter Meiners, and the head of research and development, Prof. Dr. Axel Herrmann, who is one of CTC’s managing directors today, alongside Marc Fette.
Today, CTC develops lightweight construction solutions for industrial use. The focus is on innovative technologies for the industrial and automated processing of composites and multi-material composites for aviation. The centre is also active in the automotive, transport, wind energy, and other industries.
CTC extension
More than 200 guests attended the October event, which featured speeches from Dr. Bernd Althusmann, Minister for Economic Affairs, Labour, Transport and Digitalisation of Lower Saxony, Dr. André Walter, Chairman of the Management Board of the Airbus Aerostructures GmbH, Melanie Reinecke, Deputy Mayor of the City of Stade and Member of the State Parliament of Lower Saxony, and Thomas Friedrichs, Managing Director of the Projektentwicklung Stade. A presentation outlining CTC’s history by Axel Herrmann and Marc Fett was followed by an opening ceremony for the new CTC extension.
Following 12 months in construction, the 680 m² extension to the CTC building offers additional production and assembly areas and includes a 1500t press. It will play a part in developing new cabin technologies, implementation of new press technologies like SMC, BMC and LFT, and validation for out-of-autoclave technologies such as resin transfer moulding (RTM).
