Development & Manufacturing

Our development & manufacturing department focuses on high-end composite solutions for demanding applications. Through a proper understanding of the requirements and expectations of our customers, we are able to assist numerous companies, from various sectors, with composite solutions that are stronger, lighter, more functional, and less expensive than anything they had before.

The uniqueness of  composite product development is the high interaction between design, process and material. Our engineering team consists of skilled and creative engineers, with experience from different industries. Our successes and capabilities are honed for three categories.

Radomes

Radar enclosures, or simply radomes, are highly electromagnetically-transparent structures used for covering and protecting antennas against sunlight, rain, wind, dust, debris, snow, hail, moisture and seawater. Radomes allow the use of radar installations, wireless telecom infrastructure and radio telescopes in the harshest of environments.

Composites allow for the unique combination of ensuring structural integrity with advantageous electromagnetic properties: a low dielectric constant and a low dielectric loss. Therefore, composites ideally suited for use in radomes. Their lightweight nature enables transport via light commercial vehicles and manual installation. Depending on the specific requirements of our customers, KVE offers radomes reinforced with glass, aramid, quartz and even Dyneema® fibres.

KVE’s unique asset is the combination of in-depth know how of materials and processes, experience with serial manufacturing and the knowledge of radar theory and testing. This combination allows us to support our customers in their newest developments and in the reliable supply of composite radar structures for use on land, at sea and in the air.

Rotor blades

In the past 10 years, KVE has developed itself into a one-stop shop for design, prototyping, certification and series-manufacture of composite rotor blades for use in both Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) platforms. These rotor blades are custom designed for each aircraft depending on their specific mission, speed, range and payload. KVE acknowledges that many UAV and UAM “start-ups” are still in an ongoing effort to access the market. This aligns perfectly with KVE’s agile and dynamic way of working: “accept uncertainty, deal with changes and be ready to scale up”.

KVE has developed robust design and testing tools to assure that these critical components, which are subjected to high peak and fatigue loads, guarantee performance and passenger safety. Given the foreseen high production rates of UAVs and UAMs, KVE has developed a cost-effective manufacturing process using single-shot Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM). The process also allows KVE to reliably manufacture blades with integrated balance weights which need only limited balancing afterwards.

Special products

Our in-depth knowledge and expertise are more broadly applicable than for just radomes and rotor blades. Via the special products team, we service a far wider range of customers that require composite solutions for aircraft structures, mechatronic applications, medical applications and satellite structures. We are familiar with the compliance requirements of each individual sector. Depending on the needs of our customers we select the best materials and manufacturing process for the task at hand:

  • Vacuum infusion
  • Resin transfer moulding
  • Compression moulding
  • (Out-of-autoclave) prepreg processing
  • CNC milling

Machine arm

Compression molding

Bracket

Compression molding

Camera crane

Prepreg processing

Y-Bridge

Prepreg processing

For more details about our development & manufacturing services, please contact our sales department.