Hexcel's Business Segments

We are a manufacturer of products within a single industry: Advanced Composites. Hexcel has two reportable segments: Composite Materials and Engineered Products. The Composite Materials segment is comprised of our carbon fiber, specialty reinforcements, resins, prepregs and other fiber-reinforced matrix materials, and honeycomb core product lines. The Engineered Products segment is comprised of lightweight high strength composite structures, molded components, engineered core and honeycomb products with added functionality.

Composite Materials
The Composite Materials segment manufactures and markets carbon fibers, fabrics and specialty reinforcements, prepregs and other fiber-reinforced matrix materials, structural adhesives, honeycomb, molding compounds, tooling materials, polyurethane systems and laminates that are incorporated into many applications, including military and commercial aircraft, wind turbine blades, recreational products, transport (cars, boats, trains) and other industrial applications.

Carbon Fibers: HexTow® carbon fibers are manufactured for sale to third-party customers as well as for our own use in manufacturing certain reinforcements and composite materials. Carbon fibers are also woven into carbon fabrics, used as reinforcement in conjunction with a resin matrix to produce pre-impregnated composite materials (referred to as “prepregs”). Carbon fiber is also used in filament winding to produce finished composite components. Key product applications include structural components for commercial and military aircraft, space launch vehicles, and certain other applications such as recreational and industrial equipment.
Fabrics, Multiaxials and Specialty Reinforcements: HexForce® fabrics, multiaxials and specialty reinforcements are made from a variety of fibers, including carbon, glass, aramid and other high strength polymers, quartz, ceramic and other specialty fibers. These reinforcements are used in the production of prepregs and other matrix materials used in primary and secondary structural aerospace applications such as wing components, horizontal and vertical stabilizer components, fairings, radomes and engine fan blades and cases, engine nacelles as well as overhead storage bins and other interior components. Our reinforcements are also used in the manufacture of a variety of industrial and recreational products such as wind energy blades, automotive components, oil exploration and production equipment, boats, surfboards, skis and other sporting goods equipment. Prepregs are applied via hand layup, automatic tape layup and advanced fiber placement to produce finished composite components.
Prepregs: HexPly® prepregs are manufactured for sale to third-party customers and for internal use by our Engineered Products segment in manufacturing composite laminates and monolithic structures, including finished components for aircraft structures and interiors. Prepregs are manufactured by combining high-performance reinforcement fabrics or unidirectional fibers with a resin matrix to form a composite material that, when cured, has exceptional structural properties not present in either of the constituent materials. Prepreg reinforcements include glass, carbon, aramid, quartz, ceramic and other specialty fibers. Resin matrices include bismaleimide, cyanate ester, epoxy, phenolic, polyimide and other specialty resins.

Other Fiber-Reinforced Matrix Materials: Fiber reinforced matrix developments include HexMC®, a form of quasi-isotropic carbon fiber prepreg that enables small to medium sized complex-shaped composite components to be mass produced. HexTOOL® is a specialized form of HexMC® for use in the cost-effective construction of high temperature resistant composite tooling. HexFIT® film infusion material is a product that combines resin films and dry fiber reinforcements to save lay-up time in production and enables the manufacture of large contoured composite structures, such as wind turbine blades.


Resins: HexFlow® polymer matrix materials are sold in liquid and film form for use in direct process manufacturing of composite parts. Resins can be combined with fiber reinforcements in manufacturing processes such as resin transfer molding (“RTM”), resin film infusion (“RFI”) or vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (“VARTM”) to produce high quality composite components for both aerospace and industrial applications, without the need for customer investment in autoclaves.
Structural Adhesives: We manufacture and market a comprehensive range of Redux® film and paste adhesives. These structural adhesives, which bond metal to metal and composites and honeycomb structures, are used in the aerospace industry and for many industrial applications.
Honeycomb: HexWeb® honeycomb is a lightweight, cellular structure generally composed of a sheet of nested hexagonal cells. It can also be manufactured in over-expanded and asymmetric cell configurations to meet special design requirements such as contours or complex curvatures. Honeycomb is primarily used as a lightweight core material and acts as a highly efficient energy absorber. When sandwiched between composite or metallic facing skins, honeycomb significantly increases the stiffness of the structure, while adding very little weight.

We produce honeycomb from a number of metallic and non-metallic materials. Most metallic honeycomb is made from aluminum and is available in a selection of alloys, cell sizes and dimensions. Non-metallic materials used in the manufacture of honeycomb include fiberglass, carbon fiber, thermoplastics, non-flammable aramid papers, aramid fiber and other specialty materials.

We sell honeycomb as standard blocks and in slices cut from a block. Honeycomb is also used in Acousti-Cap® where a non-metallic permeable cap material is embedded into honeycomb core that is used in aircraft engine nacelles to dramatically reduce noise during takeoff and landing without adding a structural weight penalty. Aerospace is the largest market for honeycomb products. In addition, we produce honeycomb for our Engineered Products segment for use in manufacturing finished parts for airframe Original Equipment Manufacturers (“OEMs”).

Engineered Products
The Engineered Products segment manufactures and markets composite structures and precision machined honeycomb parts primarily for use in the aerospace industry. Composite structures are manufactured from a variety of composite and other materials, including prepregs, honeycomb, structural adhesives and advanced molding materials, using such manufacturing processes as autoclave processing, multi-axis numerically controlled machining, heat forming, compression molding and other composite manufacturing techniques.