Michelin's Beyond Tire business thriving in aerospace sector

There's something to be said about holding the title of world's largest tire maker. It signals something bigger than tire sales.

It says something about your innovation and ingenuity, something about your vision and all that you're capable of.

For Michelin, that title is evidence of a core business strategy, the one that has it focused on growing organically and through acquisition in the with, around and beyond tires spheres.

And it's in this beyond tires space where Michelin is really focused on making its mark. Because in the end, it just makes sense, said Rick Williams, vice president and product family lead for high-tech coated fabrics at Michelin-owned Fenner Precision Polymers.

"To make a tire well you have to master composites," Williams told Rubber News. "You have to master these 300 different elements that go into the product of a tire—how to source them, how to manage them, how to engineer them, etc. … This mastery of composites, it translates beyond tires. It translates into so many different areas."

Areas like seals and gaskets, hoses and belts.

And this is where Fenner and CDI Products come into play.

Both companies, acquired in 2018, are part of Michelin's Beyond Tire business, an area that embodies materials and composite expertise for a range of non-tire end markets from medical to industrial and automotive to aerospace.

Moreover, Michelin believes its Beyond Tire businesses have plenty of room for growth. Michelin anticipates that its Beyond Tire businesses will account for as much as 20-30 percent of its sales by 2030.

For perspective on how quickly the Beyond Tire business is projected to grow, Michelin last year generated about 5 percent of its $30.6 billion—or about $1.5 billion in all—from polymer composite solutions.

And to understand how Michelin's With and Beyond Tires businesses complement one another, look no further than the aviation space, a microcosm of the kind of full-service solutions that Michelin's With and Beyond Tire businesses can offer. Here, you'll find Michelin family companies supplying products to every part of the plane from tires and landing gear to cockpit and cabin.

"Not only do we make sure that all of these critical systems function and get people there safely, we also help provide them a nice, comfortable means of getting there," CDI Engineering Director Mike Hedger said. "It is the things you see and so many of the things you don't see."

For Fenner, this involves its Fenlon and Fabri Cote brands, which, in the aviation space, means air and fluid handling, high-end coated fabrics and advanced sealing technologies. Its products include: emergency evacuation door hinges; bearing and end rods and anti-wear hose protection; airslides and rafts; coolant hoses; coolant and high-temperature gaskets and seals; insulating waterproof fabrics; and door and cover seals.

"We are present in more than 250 components inside the aircraft today," Williams said, noting that Fenner's thermal management components offer some of the greatest opportunities in the aviation space.

Fenner serves both OEMs and suppliers from Tier 1 to Tier 5.

"We are not a catalog company," Williams said. "Everything we make is specific to our customers. We make everything to the specific specifications that they issue and, of course, the testing procedures that our customers' supply chains make."

CDI, meanwhile, provides aircraft OEMs seals, gaskets, wear products and layflat hoses. Its Arylast-branded products rely on a range of materials including NBR, HNBR, FKM, EPDM and FFKM.

And as it looks toward growth, CDI is locked in on the aviation industry's pulse. One of the main ways it does this is through participation in SAE International.

"We attend some of the meetings and get to listen to some of the people who are really involved in the conversation around standards," said Kari Schoeffler, CDI's global director of marketing, noting that the perspectives of engineers on the front lines of innovation are critical to gaining a clear picture of where the industry overall is headed.

And that vision drives CDI's innovation.

"We really listen to what is the future looking like … (because) we want to be a part of that solution for today, tomorrow and in the future," Schoeffler said. "It is interesting to hear what the engineers—what the pioneers—are saying of what can we do to help support them today and tomorrow."

And as CDI does that, Michelin, of course, is bringing tires into the equation.

The Michelin family of companies—Fenner, CDI and Michelin (tires)—showcased its complementing capabilities during the recent MRO Americas show, which focuses on the commercial aviation industry.

"MRO Americas was a really nice marriage for our three companies to come together and show our customers where we can provide robust solutions for them outside of just the tire space, but in the coated fabrics space, the sealing solutions space, bearings and functional components," Schoeffler said. "They really got to see a bigger offering that could be there for them. It was really exciting to see what we could deliver all together."

The commercial aviation sector is picking up. Especially now that things have truly settled following the COVID-19 disruptions.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, a total of 10.2 million flights were taken in 2019. That dropped drastically during the pandemic to around 5.8 million in 2020, but has been steadily rising since, reaching a post-pandemic high of 9.3 million last year.

The number of passengers boarding commercial flights also continues to rise. In 2021, U.S. flights saw 666.1 million passengers, while 2022 recorded 852.8 million before hitting the post-pandemic peak of 862.8 million last year.

That's good news according to Williams, who noted there seems to be no slowdown in the demand for new planes or, therefore, suppliers' products. Major players within the industry are continuing to work through backlog orders, meaning demand for Fenner's products remains high, particularly when it comes to engine components.

"We are seeing healthy demand right now," he said.

But that demand brings a number of challenges. Because the aviation industry is evolving, redefining itself, particularly from a sustainability perspective.

"For the world of sealing and aviation, our customers are really pushing into better sustainability," Hedger said. "... Our customers are pushing for longer life. They want to have longer time between maintenance events and so really that means higher performance and longer life out of our seals.

"And that is really driving innovation on our side around product design as well as materials for us to meet the demands of our customers."

Sometimes the innovation that customers are pushing for includes technologies that are just now breaking through.

"The way aviation is being approached is evolving tremendously and new technologies are (emerging)," Schoeffler said. "I am seeing a lot of conversations about how can we help the aviation customer revolutionize what they are doing in this space, particularly around conversations about new sustainable aviation fuels. Is there an approach to hydrogen in the space for aviation? What can we do with new blends and compounds?"

Speaking of new compounds, they're definitely needed. Especially as the industry pushes its suppliers for products that last longer and perform better at higher temperatures and pressures.

For Fenner, that's particularly true on the thermal management side.

"We are seeing more and more demand for materials that can sustain higher and higher temperatures," Williams said. "Or, we serve the space market globally, so we have higher and higher demands for higher and higher temperatures, but we also have what we classify as cryogenic—you know, the sub-zero temperatures of space. And finding the materials that can survive in both, that is not always easy to do.

"… Our customers are continually needing more. That is presenting a nice challenge for research and development teams to be able to collaborate on that."

As the R&D teams work to find solutions to emerging challenges, both Fenner and CDI find themselves facing some familiar ones, too. Particularly when it comes to forever chemicals.

"Aviation has been slower to respond than other industries, but we see this as a growing concern," Hedger said.

Like many across the rubber industry, the challenge of PFAS regulations looms, creating opportunities for Fenner and CDI to stretch its materials science capabilities.

"Our customers," Hedger said, "have joined the conversation and said, 'OK. This is going to be a trend for the future. We want to have materials that don't have PFAS, that don't have the forever chemicals in them. How do we migrate while still maintaining the performance levels that we are getting currently?'

"We are challenged with that with our customers. And so we are working through programs of discovery at this point to find out: Are there drop-in replacements? Are there fundamental changes that can help assist our customers with the design of their systems to help support materials that are PFAS-free?"

Even when it comes to the forever chemicals conundrum, there are some silver linings, according to Williams, who noted that—at least for aerospace—the evolution of the industry is, in some ways, solving its own problems.

"On the pleasant side, when you think about the chemistry of it, these PTFE solutions, they can only go to a certain temperature level before they are consumed," Williams said. "The temperature will actually carbonize the PTFE in this thing. So, as part of our innovative efforts now, those high-temperature profiles can't use PTFE anyway. So just by the evolution of the industry we are innovating out of that as well."