SLCA

With more than 30 years of industrial expertise in composites, the SLCA subsidiary of Aircelle is a partner for some of the best-known names in aeronautics.

The core business of SLCA today is focused on the project management, design and manufacturing of composite parts for airliners, regional aircraft, business jets and helicopters. SLCA has a strategy of continuous improvement, designed to constantly fulfill its customers’ developing needs, and its proactive quality policy has resulted in EN9100 certification to the high standards of the aerospace industry.

Design
SLCA offers the expertise for innovative technical solutions in the creation of complex aerostructure components in composites. The company harnesses the know-how to meet exacting technical standards and to deliver cost-effective performance for a complete range of composite structures. Its capabilities range from providing engineering skills with manual know-how to mastering leading-edge technologies – including complex parts with large dimensions and which are subject to high stress.

SLCA takes the lead in managing development of projects with partners – supported by the expertise in the Lorraine region of France, which is home to its production facility. The company’s expertise covers the complete spectrum of manufacturing engineering techniques used to develop new products based on collaborative engineering with customers.

Manufacturing, assembling and delivering complex composite parts
Since its creation in 1979, SLCA’s products have included wheel fairings, flight deck elements and other elements for Airbus jetliners, along with upper-deck engine cowlings for Eurocopter helicopters.

Beginning in 2005, Aircelle expanded SLCA’s scope, enabling the subsidiary to provide customers with full service offers as a Tier 1 supplier that cover the design and manufacture of composite structure parts to after-sales support.

This expanded mandate has given the company new momentum, leading to key contract wins such as Embraer’s selection of SLCA for cockpit components on the Embraer 170, 175, 190 and 195 regional airlines, along with rear fuselage components for the Phenom 100 business jet. This was followed by SLCA’s selection to provide mobile tail elements for Embraer’s Legacy 450/500 executive jets.

From its first composites contact in the early 1980s for air scoops on the Airbus A310 jetliner, SLCA’s skills have evolved and adapted to the requirements of aircraft producers and to new manufacturing techniques such as automatic lay-up, resin transfer molding (RTM) and liquid resin infusion (LRI) technology.

To prepare its future, SLCA is actively leading the CAPSAIRTM and COMAC advanced research and development projects, which are backed at the French national level and certified by the MATERALIA innovation cluster. CAPSAIRTM is focused on the development of resin infusion techniques for the creation of complex parts, while the COMAC project is designed to optimize inspection techniques for composite aerostructures using a transportable, non-destructive optical test system.