What are A350 wings made of?

carbon-fiber composites
Designed for wings Like Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, the A350 has wings, tail and fuselage made from carbon-fiber composites.

What is the purpose of wing spar?

The spar carries flight loads and the weight of the wings while on the ground. Other structural and forming members such as ribs may be attached to the spar or spars, with stressed skin construction also sharing the loads where it is used. There may be more than one spar in a wing or none at all.

What is a wing spar cap?

Spar Cap (flange): The spar caps carry the bending moment generated by the wing in flight. The spar caps also form a boundary onto which wing skin is attached and support the wing skin against buckling. Concentrated load points such as engine mounts or landing gear are attached to the main spar.

What is a wing spar made of?

[click to enlarge] Currently, most manufactured aircraft have wing spars made of solid extruded aluminum or aluminum extrusions riveted together to form the spar. The increased use of composites and the combining of materials should make airmen vigilant for wings spars made from a variety of materials.

Where are the wing spars for the A350 made?

The GKN Aerospace (Filton, U.K.) factory in the Western Approach of the U.K. is dedicated to wing spar manufacturing. It produces the front and rear spars for the Airbus A400M military cargo transport and the rear spar for the Airbus A350.

Why are the spars on an A350 curved?

First, there is the shape of the wing, dictated by aerodynamic, structural and ground-clearance requirements. Close examination of the A350 spars reveals that the inner spar has a very significant curvature. This is because the A350 inner wing is formed into a curved gull-wing shape.

How does smart manufacturing work on Airbus A350 XWB?

The three-part forward spar aids in assembly at the Airbus Broughton wing plant and avoids bottlenecks (like those experienced in the A380 and Boeing 787 programs), which will help maximize monthly production. For the center fuselage and front wing spar, Spirit’s “intelligent design” also incorporates “smart manufacturing” practices.

Why is the wing root on the A380 so difficult to design?

In case of the A380, two things combine to make the wing root design a particular challenge. The first is scaling laws: If something grows in size, its volume and mass will grow with the cube of the size increase, but the cross section of the load-carrying structure will only grow with the square of the increase.