Polymer chemistry consultancy Chemical Process Services Ltd. (CPS) has researched and developed a new series of “green” epoxy curing agents. The company’s Furalkamine range of polymers is said to combat the withdrawal of conventional Mannich base grades prohib

Honeycomb cores are not new to the composites industry, but they are relatively new to the automotive composites market, where composite materials are only just starting to migrate into parts and structures for high-volume vehicles.

  IDI Composites International’s (Noblesville, Ind., U.S.) North American Headquarters reported on April 20 that it has expanded the capacity of its resin materials tank farm to meet industry demand for the company’s composite materials. IDI says that the

    ITHEC 2020, 5th International Conference and Exhibition on Thermoplastic Composites, will be held in Bremen, Germany, 13 – 14 October 2020. Since 2012, ITHEC is the key event attracting the international thermoplastic composites community. In 2018, 370 int

Web Industries Inc. (Marlborough, Mass., U.S.), a precision formatter of composite materials, announced that it has installed a high-volume composite slitting and spooling line at its Omega Systèmes plant in Nantes, France. The new production line adds capacity to serve growin

  The third patent for a flexible thermoplastic prepreg, US 10,626,235, has been awarded to Robert Davies. It provides for random resin bridges between the outer surfaces of each tow, enabling a stabilized, wider tape to be produced from a single tow. The first patent, issued in 19

Pultrusion is one of the oldest forming processes for thermoset composites and is said to have been the first continuous fiber thermoset forming process. Today, it is used to produce products ranging from utility poles to window frames, as well as ladders, rebar and wind turbine components.

  Carbon fiber/epoxy prepreg has been the baseline material for aerospace composites for decades because it provides high mechanical properties and precise resin/fiber content, as well as ease of handling for layup and autoclave cure. However, as aircraft and urban air mobility (

9T Labs (Zurich, Switzerland), a system provider for digital composite production, and high-performance polymer supplier Arkema (King of Prussia, Pa., U.S.) announced on May 2 that they recently partnered to enable cost-competitive series production of structural compo

    This blog is an online sidebar for the May 2020 feature, “Revolutionizing the composites cost paradigm, Part 2: Forming”, which discusses the RApid high-Performance Manufacturing (RAPM, pronounced “wrap-em”) program led by The Boeing Co. (Chicago, Ill.,

To its current product portfolio, Bieglo High-Performance Polymers (Hamburg, Germany) has added polybenzimidazole (PBI) and ultra-high temperature thermosetting polyimide (PI-s) to its product families. According to Bieglo, PBI is one of the highest-performing thermoplastic mat

The RAPM subprogram within DARPA’s Tailorable Feedstock and Forming (TFF) program compiled analytical data from current/past production as well as empirical data from its own forming trials for multiple parts to generate these curves. The goal is to better understand the trade space for

JEC Group (Paris France) revealed the winners of the JEC Composites Innovation Awards 2020 during a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, May 13. Thirteen winners were designated in 11 categories. “Beyond being a simple award ceremony, the JEC Composites Innovation Awards are inten

Clean Sky issued a report on May 11 highlighting the program’s 2019 accomplishments. The program described 2019 as its most significant year for greener aviation in fields such as aerodynamics and aircraft configuration. Funded by the European Commission, the Clean Sky 2 public-private p

A recent study by Maxiquim (Porto Alegre, Brazil), a consultancy contracted by the Latin American Composite Materials Association (ALMACO), shows the Brazilian composites sector achieved its third consecutive year of growth in 2019. Turnover was 5.6% higher than reco

In many four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive vehicles, steel driveshafts are segmented to provide necessary torque and vibrational performance characteristics. Unlike these segmented steel counterparts, a one-piece carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) automotive driveshaft is able to provide t

AnalySwift, LLC (West Jordan, Utah, U.S.), a provider of composites simulation software, announced on May 12 that Seoul National University is leveraging AnalySwift VABS software for the design and analysis work on the university’s composite helicopter rotor blades, including t

As part of the 10th annual World Green Building Week, which took place in September 2019, the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) issued a bold vision for how buildings around the world can reach 40% less embodied carbon emissions by 2030. To meet this goal, changes need to be implement

Toray Industries Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) introduces its high tensile modulus carbon fiber and thermoplastic pellets, the Torayca T series. Ideal for injection molding, the pellets, the company claims, will enable production of complex, rigid parts that are also light, reducing environmental

Toray Advanced Composites (Morgan Hill, Calif., U.S.) announced on May 27 that its Toray TC346 prepreg resin system has passed the SFI 56.1 and UL94 V0 flame-retardancy tests. The distinction demonstrates the system’s ability to satisfy the demands of Formula