Aircraft manufacturing requires numerous rubber parts. At Angerville, near Paris, ITC Elastomers has been manufacturing them for 40 years. Elastic and durable, elastomers are derived from rubber, and used throughout the aerospace industry.
René Revault - President of ITC Elastomères
"This is a piece that is used to house electronic chips, used notably in the location of aircraft or missiles."
The company, which employs around fifty people, also makes parts for other domains, such as Formula 1 racing or defense, but the aerospace industry remains their largest customer. and most demanding.
René Revault - President of ITC Elastomères
"This is the precision molding workshop, where we manufacture a variety of parts, such as the one I have in my hand. It’s a membrane that serves to regulate the amount of oxygen supplied to civil aviation pilots’ oxygen masks."
Today, ITC Elastomères’ products are present on board most aircraft. The company produces over 1,800 different parts every year, weighing anything from just a few grams ( ounces ) up to fifteen kilos ( 35 lbs. ).
René Revault - President of ITC Elastomères
"Here, we are in a workshop where we have a 220 metric ton press that produces spacers used in civilian pilots’ oxygen masks, of which, Zodiac is our customer, and they in turn have Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, and many others as customers.
Here, we create recipes, a little like you would in a kitchen. An elastomer mixture is composed of ten ingredients: both natural and synthetic rubbers, oils, and plasticizers which are added together in these open mixers, for example."
The ability to withstand extreme temperatures, or deformation, is what makes good rubber. To satisfy their customers, ITC Elastomers’ laboratory has to develop new mixtures constantly. In order to do that, the company spends more than 4% of their turnover on new products research and development.
A turnover which reached 4.5 million euros last year.