Aerospace-Grade Carbon Fiber Materials Being Incorporated In The Swept-Tip Propellers

While Hartzell Propeller developmental activities for the company’s performance-boosting five-blade, swept-tip carbon fiber propellers will be featured at NBAA2014 next week, the company says it is working on several other yet-to-be-announced composite five-blade programs for turboprop business aircraft.

Daher-Socata's new TBM 900 features the same Hartzell composite, five-blade, swept-tip props that are available for TBM 700/850 aircraft as a retrofit STC. With field installations already underway for the TBM 700/850 series, Hartzell Propeller is focusing its efforts on future structural composite developmental projects.
 
“Aviators will be seeing more of these true composite, highly engineered propellers on additional business aircraft in the future. We are delighted to be able to bring the latest propeller designs to NBAA, where the business aviation community will quickly recognize the performance advantages of the latest in propeller aerodynamics, engineering and manufacturing expertise,” said company President Joe Brown.

“These new swept five-blade carbon fiber props by Hartzell Propeller are a great way to quickly increase takeoff, climb and cruise performance, reduce noise and invigorate ramp appeal,” Brown said.

Hartzell Propeller says it has invested heavily in its structural composite propeller center of excellence, developing aggressive-looking five-blade propellers. Hartzell props feature modern aerospace conforming materials that include carbon fiber and epoxy resins and are produced on state of the art automated manufacturing equipment.

The material choices enable aerodynamic design innovations that feature thin, wide chord or high aspect ratio, maximum efficiency airfoils giving Hartzell’s new turboprop propellers significantly increased performance. Hartzell’s five-blade composite propellers outperform other propellers because of the improved aerodynamics enabled by the high strength material.

Hartzell’s epoxy resin-injected carbon fiber blades have a tensile strength of 175 ksi (kilopound-force per square inch) compared to propellers made of beech wood (39 ksi) and spruce (8.7 ksi) construction. Hartzell says the aerospace-grade carbon fiber blades are five to 10 times stronger than wood-grade propeller blades.

Hartzell’s new five-blade design features a state-of-the-art composite wedge retention into its stainless steel alloy shank rather than the aluminum and lag screw construction used in other designs. Hartzell incorporates an innovative nickel erosion mesh and field replaceable nickel-cobalt erosion shield to minimize foreign object damage.

(Images provided by Hartzell Propeller Top: Hartzell composite props installed on TBM aircraft. Bottom: Hartzell's High Performance Thinner, Aerodynamic-Grade Composite Blade Cross Section Compared to Wood-Grade Profile)

FMI: http://hartzellprop.com