TE Wire & Cable Thermocouple Solutions Blog

Under normal conditions, the specter of flight safety never enters my mind.

This is especially true since my company provides AccuClave autoclave thermocouples to most of the world’s composite part manufacturers. Between the quality assurances we put into our composite curing thermocouple systems and the fact that I get to see the detail and determination that is involved in producing safe aircraft, I am typically quite confident about flying.

It’s the ugly stuff bad dreams are made of: You load up your parts in the autoclave or curing oven and then plug the thermocouple wires into the jack panel.  

Everything looks good and the door closes.

Oh no! Not again!

Questions from customers who manufacture composite structures are always important to me. One big reason is because I fly over 200,000 miles a year in the very planes containing parts they supply. I’m sure you’ll agree, we want those big birds to perform flawlessly 110% of the time. My second reason is because autoclave composites manufacturing questions allow me to explain how our engineering and development team work hard at producing solutions that answer those very questions.

TE Wire will showcase autoclave thermocouple assemblies for demanding aerospace autoclave applications

When it comes to selecting the right thermocouple wire, it’s all about temperature and accuracy. It is vital to select a TC wire that fits within the temperature range of your application. Why? Because a wire that doesn’t fit the required temperature range will not provide accurate temperature measurement. And this could lead to system or parts damage if the elements of your application get too hot.

Yesterday, I shared an infographic from SAMPE about the Seattle show coming in June. For many aerospace composites manufacturers, it is one of, if not THE tradeshow to attend each year.

As I was reviewing my emails regarding next month's SAMPE show in Seattle, I happened upon an interesting infographic (shown below). A couple of facts really stood out to me:

I’ve attended the JEC Composite Paris Exhibit for the past 11 years. In years past, there wasn’t a single, unifying discussion point voiced by the assembled masses. To me, this year was different. The buzz everywhere was focused on one thing: How will aerospace composites manufacturers handle the ramp-up in commercial aircraft production?

Now that we've got your attention, there is no denying it: Some amazing things are being done with composite materials outside of the aerospace sector. Case in point, check out this amazing video introducing LaFerrari.