Composite materials plant may be opened in Kazan

Today delegations of “Rosnano” state corporation and OJSC “United Aircraft Construction Corporation” arrived in Kazan to take part in the enlarged meeting of the Coordinating Council on the realization of cooperation agreement on nano technologies and nano industry development.

In the morning the guests led by Andrey Malyshev, Deputy Director General of “Rosnano” state corporation, visited Kazan aviation production association n.a. S. P. Gorbunov. The delegation was escorted by the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan Boris Pavlov.

The participants of the meeting noted that at present Russian aircraft plants drop far behind the leaders of global civil aircraft industry in the use of composite materials. The use of composite materials instead of metal materials considerably lighten the design of an aircraft and enlarges the life time of units and aggregates.

According to Vasily Kayumov, Director General of Kazan aviation production association n.a. S. P. Gorbunov, the part of composit materials in Tu-214 being constructed in Kazan makes up 25%, while in the latest Boeing-787 Dreamliner it makes 60%.

Meanwhile, Russian composite materials are three times as expensive as import materials and approximately three times worse in relation to the most important technological parameters, such as breaking strength.

Import materials can be used in Russian aircrafts, but export conditions of foreign countries and companies makes OJSC “United Aircraft Construction Corporation” develop domestic manufacture of composite materials. Now the company is looking for a place to build the new plant.

According to experts, the project investment cost makes up 400 – 700 million euro. Voronezh, Ulyanovsk, Moscow area and Kazan are regarded as possible places fot the plant construction.