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Brighton Science Blog
Topic: Aerospace
How to Validate the Cleanliness of Optics (and Why It Matters More Than You Think)
In the world of optics, even a tiny speck of contamination can ruin a product. Whether you’re in precision manufacturing, medical imaging, or aerospace components, surface cleanliness isn’t just a box to check—it’s the foundation of performance and reliability.
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Posts by Topic
Speed vs. Quality: How Manufacturing Sectors Balance Risk, Cost, and Innovation
In every manufacturing environment, there's one constant tension: how to move fast without breaking things. Whether you're building airplanes, cars, consumer electronics, or medical devices, the same tradeoff exists: production speed versus product quality.
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Beyond Surface Prep: How Manufacturers Are Using Water Contact Angle to Control Adhesion Quality
Introduction Adhesion failures are among the most common yet preventable issues in composite bonding, coatings, and sealants. Whether in aerospace, automotive, or medical manufacturing, poor surface preparation can lead to structural weaknesses, warranty claims, and costly rework. But what if the...
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The High Cost of Molding Defects: Protect Your Bottom Line
Imagine crafting a colossal mold, a behemoth capable of shaping fiberglass and composites into the intricate contours of a plane wing, the sleek hull of a boat, or even the entire body of a bus. It's a monumental task, requiring months of meticulous preparation and planning. As you gear up to start...
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Gaining a Competitive Edge: The Power of Surface Analysis with Brighton Science
Every manufacturer that bonds, coats, paints, seals, or cleans needs objective surface measurement technology. It's the key to compressing lead times, reducing waste, and improving product consistency. Brighton Science has a versatile suite of solutions for surface analysis based on water contact...
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Surfaces Matter: Why Tracking Material Surface Quality is Critical for Aircraft Safety
The relentless pursuit of safety underpins every aspect of aerospace manufacturing. However, two significant hurdles impede this goal: verification and non-destructive testing. Destructive testing, the traditional method for assessing bond strength, is impractical for composite materials – the...
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Adhesive Bonding vs. Mechanical Fastening in Product Design: The Pros and Cons
When creating their next innovative product, designers, and manufacturers strive to achieve optimal performance while minimizing assembly and materials costs. In this pursuit, they often focus on optimizing material usage. In the quest to achieve optimization, it is uncommon for excess materials to...
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![Identifying Adhesive Bond Failure Points in Manufacturing [Key Considerations]](https://www.brighton-science.com/hs-fs/hubfs/images/blog-images/instron-adhesion-test-blog.jpg?width=372&height=180&name=instron-adhesion-test-blog.jpg)
Identifying Adhesive Bond Failure Points in Manufacturing
One particular area that has proven to be a challenge in manufacturing is adhesion and surface quality. Research and development teams, product developers, and manufacturing operations frequently encounter difficulties with adhesion processes, such as coating or adhesion problems throughout the...
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The Solution to Costly Aircraft Paint Adhesion Failure
The importance of understanding surface quality and being able to measure it in an accurate, reliable, and demonstrable way is important for ensuring a high-quality finish and, ultimately, a high-quality product. Any manufacturer that is not able to do this increases their risk of producing...
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Top Challenges Product Development Teams Experience When Bringing a Product Concept to Manufacturing
Modern product development is fraught with challenges due in large part to the sophistication and complexity of the various elements that go into a final product – everything from materials and surface geometries to coatings, bonding, and even staff skills and competencies. Pitfalls await even the...
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Surface Preparation for Primer Coating of Composites in Aerospace Applications
Achieving a flawless, long-lasting paint job on an aircraft is a complex undertaking. This multi-stage process starts well before the final coat graces the wings and tail. Components are meticulously molded, prepared (often involving multiple steps), assembled, and then coated with primers and...
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Surface Treatment of Thermoplastics for Aerospace Components
The Aerospace and Defense Industry is experiencing a market boom right now. Investments in the aerospace industry are an increasingly significant part of the world economy. Last year, almost $1 trillion was spent worldwide, with about $400 billion spent directly on aircraft and space systems...
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3 Things You Need to Know to Create Strong, Reliable Bonds With Laser Cleaning
Manufacturers are always looking to create stronger, more durable, reliable, and lightweight products in the automotive and aerospace sectors. In this pursuit, they’ve often upgraded and swapped out material systems for metal alloys with lower density, better temperature tolerance, and corrosion...
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How to Avoid Polymeric Coating Failure Which Leads to Corrosion in Materials
These days, if you see a painted product, it is likely a polymer-based coating providing a striking and powerful barrier between the underlying material and elements in the atmosphere that want to corrode that material. Polymer coating technology has advanced tremendously in the last decade....
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Topcoat to Primer Surface Reliability for Aircraft Painting
Adhesion problems don’t have a preference when it comes to the kind of damage they cause. Whether the end result is structural or cosmetic, adhesion-related failure headaches for manufacturers abound. One of the most crucial aesthetic operations for aircraft OEMs is the topcoat of paint, although...
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Surface Quality in Aircraft Sealing and Bonding for Repairs
When an aircraft is manufactured, every single portion of the plane or jet is designed to be able to be serviced and repaired for the next 20-30 years. Aircraft manufacturing OEMs are building aircraft with the expectation that extensive repairs will have to be done later down the road. This is an...
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Effective Strategies for Efficient and Reliable Manufacturing That Can’t Wait
Today, manufacturing requires a paradigm shift from reactionary whack-a-mole problem correction to taking a holistic approach. The mutually reliant elements of manufacturing are interwoven in both obvious and invisible ways. From supply chain communication to equipment dependability and from ...
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How to Get a Stronger Weld Through Cleaning
Even though we look around us and see plastic everywhere, in every shape and imaginable application, metals are still a more commonly used raw material in machined products. Metals are the legacy material of choice due to their strength and relative ease of bonding. However, advances in polymers...
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Demystifying the Greatest Metal Brazing Process Challenges
When thinking about what manufacturing looks like, most people envision sparks flying, metal clanking, and fires blazing. This isn’t too far off the mark since metals were used to bond joints together to build larger, sturdier, and more stable structures before the first Industrial Revolution,...
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Brighton Science's Exceptional Lab: Experts in Advanced Materials and Processes
Brighton Science Lab Capabilities The history of Brighton Science (formerly BTG Labs) is rooted in adhesion research. Originally a development lab, Brighton Science specialized in plasma polymerized coatings. The engineers worked with coatings containing corrosion-resistant and anti-microbial...
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