Composites Today

Formaplex Opens New R&D Facility

editor — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:17:47 +0000

Formaplex have have opened a new, 3,000sq.ft composites R&D facility as well as added people to its composites team.

Leading the newly restructured Formaplex Composites Division is Ian Wilson, a founding director of the company, who has gained a wealth of composites experience over the past 12 years. Adding to that the company have bolstered its technical sales capacity with the addition of two new staff members. The new members are a specialist manufacturing engineer and a new Business Development Manager.

A key focus for the new Composites Division will be to expand the company’s market share in aerospace and defence as well as continuing to grow its activities in motorsport. The Division will have new composites machining capacity and the new Formaplex R&D facility at its disposal.

The 3,000sq.ft R&D facility will focus on out-of-autoclave processes, including resin infusion, RTM and pressing, plus the use of thermoplastics with composite dry fibres. It is already working on a number of projects in various sectors, including automotive.

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Lamborghini Egoista

editor — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:40:11 +0000

The culmination of the gala celebrating Lamborghini’s 50th anniversary came to a close earlier in the week in Sant’Agata Bolognese with the unveiling of the outrageous Lamborghini Egoista.

Made by the Head of Volkswagen Group’s design Walter De Silva, this amazing vehicle made its entry in front of a thousand invitees, the designers homage to celebrating the House of the Raging Bull’s half century. Walter said that being an Italian himself we was very attached to the Lambo brand and that the supercar has always been made with passion and the heart rather than the head.

Concept and technology

Powered by a 5.2-liter V10 engine supplying it with 600 bhp, the Egoista is an intentionally extreme and unusual vehicle with unique characteristics

Created by the Volkswagen Group design team, Alessandro Dambrosio responsible for the exterior and Stefan Sielaff for the interior, in particular. De Silva’s team chose to create a single-seater. The cockpit, designed like a tailor-made suit for the driver, is a removable section which, once combined with the rest of the vehicle, creates a perfect technical, mechanical and aerodynamic unit. Inspiration, as per Lamborghini tradition, once again comes from the world of aviation, and in particular the Apache helicopter, where the cockpit can be ejected in an emergency.

The cockpit has been made completely of carbon fibre and aluminium and represents a kind of
survival cell.

The design

When Designing the Egoista we kept an eye on the future, with the idea that its cockpit could have been taken from a jet aircraft and integrated into a road vehicle to provide a different travel option.

The exterior has been characterised by two fundamental aspects, its architecture, and the materials used.

The design idea for the car was to make the Lamborghini symbol part of the bodywork, as you can see from the front view of the car, the bodywork is dominated, on its sides, by the profile of a bull preparing to charge with its horns lowered. The plan view reveals a trimaran profile, where the central hull forms a unique section with the cockpit, underlined by the carbon fibre cover on the front hood.

The upper part of the vehicle does not have aerodynamic appendages, but rather flaps integrated in the bodywork profile which act automatically depending on the driving conditions. Two rear flaps activate automatically at high speeds to increase stability, while a series of air intakes on the back of the engine hood provide cooling air flow to the engine. The front of the vehicle has a profile intended to increase downforce, the rear is fully open with the mechanics in view, reducing weight and creating a raw aggressive look. The Lamborghini Egoista’s lights are more like an aircraft’s than a road vehicle’s.

The Egoista does not have traditional headlights, rather LED clearance lights which determine its position not just on a single plane such as the road, but rather in three dimensions, as is required in airspace. Two white front lights, two red rear lights, a red flashing light in the upper part of the tail, two orange bull’s eyes as side markers, and a further two lights on the roof, make this four-wheeled UFO unique even in the dark. Finally, hidden behind the front air intakes at the base of the join between the central body and the two side sections, are two powerful xenon headlamps, two eagle’s eyes able to scan the darkness for great distances.

As it is made from lightweight materials such as aluminium and carbon fibre, the vehicle has no-walk zones, duly marked like on airliners. The parallels with the world of aeronautics do not end here, however, as the body is made from a special antiradar material, and the glass is anti-glare with an orange gradation. The rims are also made from antiradar material, flat and rough, embellished with carbon fibre plates to improve their aerodynamics.

The cockpit’s interior is functionality taken to the extreme. There is a racing seat with a four-point seatbelt, the airbags, and the bare minimum of instruments. The focal point of these is a heads-up display, typical of jet fighters.

Even getting out of the Egoista requires a pilot more than a driver, in order to disembark the craft, the driver must remove the steering wheel and rest it on the dashboard, open the electronic dome stand up in their seat, sit down on a precise point of the left-hand bodywork, then swivel their legs 180 degrees from the inside of the cockpit to the outside of the vehicle. At this point they can set their feet down and stand up.

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Gurit Announces New Partnership With Mahogany Company

editor — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:15:13 +0000

Gurit have announced a new tolling arrangement with composite kit manufacturer Mahogany Company of Mays Landing in New Jersey for the fabrication of Gurit’s B³ SmartPac™ solution.

Following the companies recent global re-structure, Gurit has chosen to streamline its B³ SmartPac operations in Bristol, Rhode Island, and toll produce all North American B³ SmartPac kits in conjunction with Mahogany Company of Mays Landing.

Gurit’s B³ SmartPac is a versatile construction solution that helps builders manufacture composite components more efficiently and cost-effectively than ever before. The B³ SmartPac solution comprises optimised structural design with pre-cut reinforcements and core materials, designed to reduce complexity and cost in production boatbuilding.

The Mahogany Company, began life in 1945 as a supplier of boat lumber but was transformed over time to become an independent fibreglass and resin distributor, the company will fabricate all B³ SmartPac kits to existing specifications, Gurit USA’s sales, customer support and structural engineering teams will continue to operate from the Bristol, Rhode Island office.

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Norco Opens New Composites Facility

editor — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:45:26 +0000

Norco Ltd have announced the opening of a new composite facility bespoke to Prepreg, Infusion & Epoxy FRP composite structures.

Norco have been supplying Glass Reinforced plastic components and tooling services for over 27 years, up until the opening of the new composites centre this diversification of projects and technologies had been spread across the 4 separate work centres totalling 85,000sqft.

The company said it was becoming harder to manage projects from a skills point of view but also from a quality point of view. Anyone with a background in composite manufacturing will know that laminating decorative carbon prepreg in the immediate vicinity of another operator sanding or hand laminating is not ideal but often inevitable when short of space.

With a growing list of customers in Aerospace, Simulation, Renewable & Communication markets, it became clear a new bespoke facility was required to support this growth whilst at the same time not turning our back on the traditional marine Market that Norco has grown up from to the 130 employees it employs today.

The new 16,000sqft manufacturing facility was constructed in the 4th qtr of 2012 to amalgamate the existing and growing range of advanced composite projects, the new facility features two separate work areas with twin gantry 16 ton overhead cranes at 12m high.

These were incorporated into the building design to ensure the company has the capability of manufacturing and moving very large structures and the safe handling of the tooling. This now allows Norco to undertake and cater for the growing market demand for larger composite structures.

The larger of the two bays house the two large composite curing ovens the biggest being a modular oven 6m x 6m x 3m with a smaller high temperature oven 6m x 3m x 2m capable of 200°C which is able to fulfil the high service temperature systems used in the oil & gas projects.

Composites Project manager – Henry Nicholson-Cole stated

One of the fundamental factors to successful out-of-autoclave cured prepreg components is having full control of the cure parameters, so investment in very high quality ovens pays dividends in reliability and repeatability.

Both ovens are able to maintain +/-3°C within their operating envelope and run on their own independent programmable computers offering continuous real-time monitoring of part temperatures.

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First Airbus A350 XWB Gets New Paint Job

editor — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:59:33 +0000

Painting of the first A350 XWB has been completed as it emerged in its Airbus livery out from the paintshop in Toulouse. This latest milestone shows that MSN001 is progressing well on its route to first flight.

The aircraft painting was achieved in less than seven days and follows the recent completion of MSN001’s flight-test-instrumentation (FTI) verification. Last month the aircraft underwent its engines installation, and passed a subsequent intensive phase of ground vibration tests. The aircraft will soon start the final tests before its maiden flight this summer.

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UMain Composites Centre Unveils first Concrete Composite Floating Turbine

editor — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:50:09 +0000

The University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center has unveiled the floating platform of VolturnUS, a unique wind turbine that is hoped will be the future of green energy in Maine. The turbine prototype is a one-eighth-scale version of the finished turbines that are expected to be seen 20 miles off Maine’s coastline by 2030.

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GKN Creates Composite Wing Structure Using New Manufacturing Process

editor — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:20:56 +0000

GKN Aerospace have successfully concluded a composite manufacturing and assembly research programme using of out of autoclave processes and materials and PI shaped woven preforms.

These technologies are among those with the potential to transform the future manufacture and assembly of large composite aero-structures and produce the performance gains in the next generation of airframes.

The OOA Composite Processing Phase II programme used Out of Autoclave materials to design, develop and manufacture affordable, lightweight, blended aircraft wing box featuring integrally stiffened skins, complex contours and four different stringer shapes. The manufacture of the parts used vacuum bag technology and the low-cost tooling that becomes practicable when curing outside the extreme autoclave environment. The wing box was then assembled using fastener free, impregnated PI joints.

Phase II wing box structure

Stephen Grojean, Materials and Process Engineer, GKN Aerospace explains:

As an industry we are striving to improve airframe manufacture by reducing airframe cost and weight. To achieve these goals we are designing larger, lighter, more integrated aircraft structures. This programme addresses two of the major challenges we face – overcoming the limitations imposed by autoclave curing and proving effective fastener free, joining processes. The results we have achieved serve as a technology enabler allowing us to progress to next stage in composite wing structure and blended wing box manufacture.

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Bayer MaterialScience Closes Carbon Nanotube Project

editor — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:25:49 +0000

Bayer MaterialScience have announced that the company will bring its work on carbon nanotubes to a close and instead focus its development activities on topics that are linked more to its core business.

Researchers from Bayer MaterialScience had collaborated with external partners in recent years to resolve complex issues related to the safe production of specific carbon nanotubes. Methods for scaling up the production processes were developed, as were new generations of catalysts and new types of products.

Much of the knowledge gained over recent years has been made available to other companies and research institutions within the Innovation Alliance Carbon Nanotubes (Inno.CNT), which counts Bayer MaterialScience among its roughly 90 members.

Patrick Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of Bayer MaterialScience said;

We remain convinced that carbon nanotubes have huge potential, It has been found however, that the potential areas of application that once seemed promising from a technical standpoint are currently either very fragmented or have few overlaps with the company’s core products and their application spectrum

The conclusion of the nano projects has no impact on the headcount, all 30 people employed in this sector will be transferred to other suitable positions within the Group.

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Alex Hull’s Carbon Fibre Split Chair

editor — Wed, 08 May 2013 18:53:50 +0000

Alex Hull Studio presents Split Chair, a new addition to the Split range created with Gallery FUMI for PAD Paris.

In this work Alex Hull continues to explore new ways of applying leather, creating striking organic forms and capturing the notion of the surface tension. The range also features asymmetrical sofa that doubles as a chaise longue, a foot stool and a coffee table.

The Split Chair is a light, organic structure, which was inspired by the movement of waves and the composite construction of a surfboard. The continuous leather form of the chair, with concealed seams and light padding, splits open to reveal a more delicate and tactile suede interior as if it has been torn apart.

I wanted the chair to appear as if the leather has been separated to reveal a soft unprotected core. I made the piece by shaping the internal composite core using traditional saddlery skills. My work is based on the philosophy of contemporary technology coming together with traditional craftsmanship

The chair features a carbon composite core made by the URT Group and was clad in leather and suede. The use of carbon fibre has created a unique, organic design which brings together contemporary and traditional manufacturing techniques.

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Northern Composites To Serve As Eastern US Representative for Tencate

editor — Wed, 08 May 2013 09:19:34 +0000

TenCate Advanced Composites North America have announced that Northern Composites will serve as an eastern U.S. representative for TenCate regarding tooling prepregs and materials.

Last year, TenCate and 3M joined forces to market and support 3M’s line of tooling prepregs featuring 3M’s patented matrix resin technology. This product utilises nanosilicas to create a more durable, robust and dimensionally accurate tool for the fabrication of composite parts.

Northern Composites will have responsibility for supporting customers in the Eastern half of the United States of America. Joe Johnson, Tooling Product Manager at TenCate Advanced Composites comments;

TenCate is very pleased to be working with Northern Composites. They have hands on experience building composite tools with customers, and offer a complete line of materials from adhesives to mold releases to consumables. Northern Composites has a long and successful track record of offering world-class service and technical support

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