Hardide Aerospace Coatings, provider of advanced surface coating technology, has appointed Stewart Gibson as Business Development Manager to drive forward the company’s global sales activity in the civil and military aerospace sectors.
Stewart has more than 30 years of experience within the advanced surface coatings industry, has in-depth knowledge of the aerospace sector and extensive commercial and technical expertise.
He joins from Castolin Eutectic, part of Messer Group, where he was Global Coatings Manager with responsibilities that included customer and product diversification. Prior to that, Stewart held senior operational and sales positions in Bodycote Surface Technology, Renold Power Transmission, Vickers Engineering, Praxair and Hawker Siddeley Group.
Philip Kirkham, CEO of Hardide plc said: “Stewart brings a weighty combination of high technology surface coatings and aerospace sector experience together with excellent global industry contacts. We welcome him as a strong addition to our business development team as we drive our growth and expansion in the aerospace sector.”
Hardide Coatings is currently in the final stages of a coating qualification programme with Airbus and is in a development programme with AgustaWestland. It is working towards global aerospace Nadcap accreditation and expects to apply for final certification under this scheme before the end of 2015.
In January 2015, the company announced an investment of up to $7m in a new North American coating facility in Martinsville, Virginia. The site was chosen as it is part of an Enterprise Zone which is already home to 230 aerospace companies, as well the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing and two Rolls-Royce facilities.
The range of Hardide coatings are highly abrasion, erosion, corrosion and chemical resistant while also being tough, ductile and impact resistant. Applied by chemical vapour deposition (CVD), the process can coat both external and internal surfaces as well as complex geometries. The coatings are proven to offer dramatic improvements in component life, delivering cost savings through reduced downtime and increased operational efficiency.
The Hardide-A variant of the coating has been developed specifically to meet the needs of the aerospace industry and as a direct replacement for hard chrome plating (HCP) which faces restrictions imposed by EU REACH and US OSHA regulations. Hardide-A meets the new EU and US environmental standards and provides comparable or better wear, corrosion, hardness, surface finish and substrate bonding properties to HCP.