PPG Expands Aerospace Coatings Development, Capabilities at UK Facility
$2 million investment supports installation of advanced-technology equipment for evaluating paint characteristics.
![](https://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/cms/PF/Blog/PPG_England_1.jpg;maxWidth=600)
PPG has expanded development and technical-service capabilities for aerospace and military coatings at its Shildon, England, facility with a $2 million investment supporting installation of advanced-technology equipment for evaluating paint characteristics. Environmentally controlled spray booths and a suite of complementary rooms now enable the PPG site to streamline new-product launches and produce more-exact color matches.
One paint spray booth, which can house an aircraft section or small military vehicle, provides variable temperature and humidity settings for product development and training. A second paint spray booth, which maintains constant temperature and relative humidity settings, is designed for applying coatings to panels for customer color-match requests. An expanded testing laboratory has a dedicated color-mixing area and constant temperature and humidity settings. New sanding, drying and oven rooms afford the full range of application processing from preparation to drying in controlled environments.
According to Peter Wind, PPG technical manager, the aerospace industry is seeing increased demand for custom color as well as an accelerating pace for commercializing new coatings technologies, and the new capabilities at the Shildon facility strengthen PPG’s responsiveness to these trends.
“With color being used more in airline liveries and on business aircraft, PPG customers will be able to see more precisely how we can make their vision a reality,” Wind said.
“PPG aerospace and military coatings are designed for global application and service,” he added. “These new capabilities enable us to simulate different environmental conditions that could be encountered by our customers anywhere in the world from Dubai, where summers are hot and dry, to humid Singapore and even Russia, where a maintenance and repair operation might apply our products in damp, cold conditions. As we develop coatings that have new characteristics, we will be able to streamline their launch.”
The two paint spray booths and a viewing gallery are located in a two-story, 3,400-square-foot addition, while the testing laboratory and related rooms occupy the former spray booth space.
The Shildon facility, which has been in operation since 1967, also produces aerospace sealants and operates an application support center. It has nearly 200 employees.
PPG’s global aerospace business (ppgaerospace.com) offers coatings, sealants, transparencies, packaging and application systems, and transparent armor, as well as chemical management and other services.
Related Content
-
Zinc Phosphate: Questions and Answers
Our experts share specific questions about zinc phosphate and pretreatment
-
NASF/AESF Foundation Research Project #121: Development of a Sustainability Metrics System and a Technical Solution Method for Sustainable Metal Finishing - 15th Quarterly Report
This NASF-AESF Foundation research project report covers the twelfth quarter of project work (October-December 2023) at Wayne State University in Detroit. In this period, our main effort focused on the development of a set of Digital Twins (DTs) using the Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN) technology with application on parts rinsing simulation.
-
NASF/AESF Foundation Research Project #122: Electrochemical Approaches to Treatment of PFAS in Plating Wastewater - 7th Quarterly Report
The NASF-AESF Foundation Research Board has selected a project on addressing the problem of PFAS and related chemicals in plating wastewater streams, studying PFAS destruction via electrooxidation and electrocoagulation. Our last report described the results from experiments of EO with a Magnéli phase Ti4O7 anode on the degradation of eight perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs). In this seven quarter report, we describe work to further explore how the degradation of different PFAAs are related to their molecular structures.