TecEurope
Thermal Equipment (Europe) Ltd has specialists who have been deeply involved within the aerospace and advanced materials process industry over the last 30 years. They have primarily concentrated on developing products for processing advanced composite structures for the aerospace, motor sport and military sectors, whilst working in conjunction with their customers, to whom they have provided many optimised turnkey process engineering solutions.
The management team of TEC (Europe) has been responsible for the origination, design and manufacture of innovations such as;
- Gas radiant tube heated autoclaves.
- Circumferential airflow autoclaves.
- Hot impingement and vertical airflow autoclaves.
- Multi zone temperature control.
- Dynamic thermal head ratio control.
- Friction heat control and distributed heat systems.
Other technological applications with which the Company has been deeply involved include;
- Autoclaves for the manufacture of specialist automotive tyres.
- Automotive windscreen laminating.
- Hydro-forming and curing of phenolic based compounds.
- Autoclave based solvent impregnation and expansion of tobacco products.
- Autoclave treatment of medical waste.
Our associate, Thermal Equipment Corporation (TEC) www.thermalequipment.com is based in California USA and is arguably the world’s most successful aerospace autoclave manufacturer with some 1300 autoclave sales to date throughout the world. In 2005 TEC, undertook a multi-million pound contract to supply two very large autoclaves for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) in Japan, based on a license to use circumferential airflow design technology as originated by AeroThermal Group’s CEO, Ian Toll. These autoclaves were designed to process the wing skins and stringer components for the Boeing 787 programme. At the same time, TEC also delivered a very large autoclave for what is now Spirit Aerosystems, Wichita, again for the 787 program, making TEC the largest single supplier of 787 autoclave systems, worldwide.
The AeroThermal Group Operations Director, Christian Toll, was previously Operations VP of TEC, based in California and was responsible as Senior Project Manager for the overall programme, build and implementation of the MHI projects. All thermo and fluid dynamic design and management was carried out under the direction of AeroThermal Group’s Technical Director, Dr. Nigel Bailey.
Both Thermal Equipment Europe and Thermal Equipment Corporation in the USA, deliver bespoke autoclave systems, ranging from small laboratory bench top models to extremely large field fabricated vessels in the range of 9 metre diameter. Through proven practical knowledge and experience in the manufacture of composite components, process control on extremely large autoclaves has been demonstrated to achieve accuracy within +/- 0.9 oC, measured across as many as 80 calibrated thermocouples over a tool size of 5 m x 40 m.
Any Autoclave large or small our team can adapt their skills to meet your requirements.