Custom Sealants Develop Into Standard Products With Added Benefits

Increasingly, airframe manufacturers and airlines are being driven to find Lean targeted approaches in how they seal their aircraft. PPG Industries’ (NYSE:PPG) aerospace business initiated its Customized Sealant Solutions (CSS) program to team with customers and develop innovative product concepts that optimize and simplify the process of sealing aircraft. These CSS products are supplied in unique forms and provide traditional sealing, corrosion-inhibiting and smoothing characteristics while affording significant labor time and quality advantages and even lightning-strike protection, according to PPG Aerospace officials.

Customized sealants should grow to about 10 to 15 percent of applications in the next 10 years, according to Bill Keller, PPG Aerospace global segment manager for sealants.

“When a customer comes to us with a particular need, we develop a customized sealant solution that adds value,” Keller said. “The result is a better sealing method for the customer that may have application for others as well.”

For example, PRC seal caps by PPG were developed for Bombardier Aerospace to enhance quality and uniformity while reducing labor time and waste on the Q400. PRC seal caps are small caps molded from liquid PRC sealant that cures to form a flexible rubber shell. The cured caps are filled with more sealant, and then frozen to arrest curing. The seal caps are thawed and applied over fasteners to cure, affording higher quality, less waste and better uniformity than traditional extruded application, according to John Sands, PPG Aerospace global business platform manager for aerospace sealants.

With the success at Bombardier, PPG’s sales team presented PRC seal caps as a solution for other customers. They now are in use on military, commercial and general-aviation platforms worldwide, with more than 40 sizes in the product line.

Compared with traditional dome sealing, seal caps can reduce application time by 60 percent, Sands said.