NOBRAK actively serves demanding technological industries, including aerospace, space exploration, automotive, defense, and high-performance sporting goods. Notable projects include collaborative work with agencies such as the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), including prototyping bio-sourced composite fairing components for space launch programs (such as the CALLISTO launcher initiative).

Proprietary Technologies and Methodologies

NOBRAK's technical capabilities center around modern automated fiber placement techniques, which allow engineers to align structural fibers precise to the load paths of a given component.

1. Tailored Fiber Placement (TFP)

Tailored Fiber Placement is an automated textile manufacturing technology that lays down reinforcing fibrous material (such as carbon, glass, or aramid rovings) onto a flat base substrate, securing the paths with functional stitching. * Fiber Orientation Control: Unlike woven fabrics or unidirectional tapes constrained to orthogonal grids, TFP allows continuous curvilinear paths, aligning fibers directly along principal stress lines. * Zero Scrap Production: Fibers are laid exclusively where structural reinforcement is needed, creating "net-shape" preforms that drastically minimize trimmings and material waste. * Selective Local Reinforcement: Allows thickness variations across a single part, adding localized stiffness or reinforced material paths around drill points and cutouts to prevent crack propagation.

2. High-Volume Tailored Fiber Placement (HV-TFP)

To overcome the low production rate traditionally associated with standard TFP operations, NOBRAK developed and holds patents pending for HV-TFP (High-Volume Tailored Fiber Placement). * Enhanced Productivity: Designed to scale fiber placement cycles to mass-production volumes required by high-volume automotive or industrial applications. * Cost and Cycle Time Reduction: Combines high-speed automated laying with optimized processing steps to reduce operator touch-time and unit production costs.

Products and Technical Solutions

NOBRAK provides engineered dry preforms, composite pre-series, and integrated multi-functional structures tailored to client design specifications.

Technical Textile Preforms

• Dry Fiber Preforms: Precision-stitched dry textile structures made from high-performance fibers, including Carbon Fiber, Glass Fiber, Kevlar (Aramid), and natural/bio-sourced fibers (such as flax).
• Co-Mingled Thermoplastic Preforms: Preforms created by stitching co-mingled structural fibers alongside thermoplastic matrix filaments (e.g., Polypropylene [PP], Polyethylene Terephthalate [PET], Polyamide [PA6], Polyetherimide [PEI], or Polycarbonate [PC]). These can be rapidly hot-pressed without requiring resin transfer molding steps.
• Z-Direction Reinforced Preforms: Integrated through-thickness sewing applied to both monolithic structures and sandwich panels, providing out-of-plane shear strength and preventing delamination.

Multi-Functional Integrated Preforms

NOBRAK integrates electronic and structural features directly into the textile layout prior to resin infusion or consolidation: * Embedded Heating Elements: Carbon fiber resistive heating loops stitched directly into structural composite components. * Embedded Electronics and Sensors: Direct integration of printed circuit elements, RFID chips, antennas, and structural health monitoring sensors within the composite layers. * Metallic and Structural Inserts: Pre-positioned mounting hardware, threads, or metallic bushings built directly into the preform.

Engineering Services and Industrial Offerings

NOBRAK operates as both a specialized contract manufacturer and an R&D service provider, assisting clients through the full development cycle from concept design to pre-series output.

1. R&D and Engineering Feasibility

• Design Optimization: Utilization of advanced Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Finite Element Method (FEM) simulation tools to optimize fiber trajectories, minimize weight, and predict mechanical performance under real-world stress conditions.
• Technico-Economic Assessment: Evaluating the viability, cost savings, and weight reduction potential of transitioning traditional composite or metallic parts to TFP/HV-TFP preforms.

2. Prototyping and Tooling Design

• Tooling and Mold Fabrication: In-house CNC milling capabilities (handling aluminum and steel tooling up to 1.2 x 0.7 x 0.7 meters) to produce customized prototype molds suitable for thermo-forming and compression processes.
• Rapid Prototype Production: Fast-turnaround production of physical composite parts and proof-of-concept components for physical testing and validation.

3. Pre-Series and Contract Manufacturing

• Flexible Scalability: Manufacturing capacities spanning small prototype batches (1 to 10 units) up to medium and large pre-series volumes (up to 10,000 units and beyond).
• Automated Quality & Optimization: Machine programming optimization, raw material qualification, and automated stitching repeatability verification across full production runs.