Safran’s rudders in “3D woven” carbon fiber
The delamination – or at the worst, fracture – of a rudder can turn out to be very dangerous for a solo sailor. To prevent it, the Safran group called on advanced technology with carbon fibers woven in three dimensions to make the composite rudders for Marc Guillemot’s boat.
© Jacques Vapillon / DPPI / Safran
A product of Group research, this “3D woven” technology is used for the fan blades on commercial aircraft engines. The rudders of a sailboat, crucial to controlling the craft, are often subjected to severe shocks in collisions with UFOs or sea creatures… Even with systems for automatically retracting a rudder on contact, this can still result in major damage, with delamination that may lead to breakage of the whole part. With the 3D woven technology the carbon fibers, instead of being laid on top of each other in successive layers, are first woven in three dimensions on Jacquard looms (used in the textile industry) before being applied to the rudder main beam and the leading and trailing edges. The innovation lies in the way the carbon material is processed to obtain a structure in which the fibers are bonded strongly in all directions. “The advantage of this procedure is that without any gain in weight, the component is more durable and dependable thanks to its greater resistance to shock and freedom from delamination,” explains Pascal Chadail, project leader at Safran.
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