A close-up of the cross section of the A350’s wing showing the 35 layers of Carbon Fibre which go into the making of the wing.
📸 Bruce Adams
The A350’s wing is made from carbon-fibre reinforced plastic, a lightweight carbon composite.
This is created by arranging microscopically thin carbon fibres into a matrix with a resin and then subjecting this to intense heat and pressure.
The result is the production of laminated skin panels, which can be layered to create a very strong, but lightweight structure.
A 30-metre wing can be over 100 layers thick in some places and only 10 layers thick in others. The fibre orientation within each layer, as well as a layer’s thickness, are crucial to a wing’s design.
In the vigorous test, the wing bends, or is displaced, by an incredible 5.2 metres showing its incredible flexibility.
The A350 certification tests covered an equivalent of three times the aircraft’s design lifetime, to include a large safety factor for the fatigue behaviour.
By – Arjun Singh (Airline captain A320 | B737Â )