Rolls-Royce (London, U.K.) has started manufacture of the world’s largest fan blades, for its UltraFan demonstrator engine that will set new standards in efficiency and sustainability. This milestone marks the official start of parts production for the demonst

    A new technique from Toray Industries Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) has been developed to more simply produce micro-level spherical particles of polyamide with high melting points, such as polyamide 6 and polyamide 66. Specifically designed for additive manufacturing,

    Composite materials and technology supplier Solvay (Alpharetta, Ga., U.S.) has installed a four-axis robotic filament winding machine designed and built by fiber handling specialist and custom machinery manufacturer Cygnet Texkimp (Cheshire, U.K.) to make low-cost prepr

  The University of Delaware's Center for Composite Materials (UD-CCM, Newark, Del., U.S.) has selected Mikrosam (Prilep, Macedonia) and its U.S. representative Composite Automation LLC (Cape Coral, Fla., U.S.) to deliver an integrated automated tape placement (ATP) machi

  Materia (Pasadena, Calif., U.S.) is seeking a Senior Applications Engineer to lead the engineering, processing project support and technical project management required for new customers to adopt Materia Proxima resins in advanced composite applications.    Essential Dut

    Polynt Reichhold Group (Scanzorosciate, Italy) has announced that it is going to establish the fully owned subsidiary Polynt Composites Turkey, incorporated and based in Istanbul. The new company will be the base to grow and consolidate the presence of Polynt Reichhold

  Overmolding is a technology in which a thermoplastic composite laminate is thermoformed and subsequently injection overmolded. This near-net-shape manufacturing process is well suited for automated large series production of complex 3D structures with excellent structural performance and

  As manufacturers seek to simultaneously reduce cost and increase rate for composite parts production, the ability to see inside molding processes in real time and monitor resin flow, viscosity, temperature, pressure and Tg/state of cure becomes a differentiator. Synthesites (Uccle, Belgi

    Solvay Composite Materials (Alpharetta, Ga., U.S.) announced on Feb. 24 that it has launched CYCOM EP2750, a new highly drapable epoxy prepreg designed specifically for the compression molding of high-quality, high-rate, cost-effective primary and secondary aerostruct

  The Institut de Soudure Group (IS Groupe, Villepinte, France) — literally “the welding institute” of France — has more than 100 years of experience in welding metals and is now establishing itself as a leader in welding thermoplastic composites. As reported in C

  This type of aeronautical research began with the European Commission Framework Programme (FP) for R&D funding, spanning FP2 (1987-1991) to FP7 (2007-2013). These programs have contributed substantially to maturing a wide variety of technologies to technology readiness le

    The American Composites Manufacturers Association (AMCA, Arlington, Va., U.S.) has announced two featured keynote speakers for its Thermoplastic Composites Conference 2020, which will be held in San Diego, Calif., U.S. April 29 through May 1: Randy Wilkerson, technical fellow&nbs

      Marshall Advanced Composites (York, U.K.) was formed when Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group (Cambridge, U.K.) bought Slingsby Advanced Composites in 2011. The company has signed a £9.5 million contract with Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, Md., U.S.) to manufactur

  Web Industries Inc. (Marlborough, Mass., U.S.), a precision formatter of composite materials, announced on March 4 that it has opened a European Center of Excellence for Composite Development & Commercialization (CoE) at Omega Systèmes in Nantes, France. The new CoE o

Tepex continuous-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composite materials from LANXESS (Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.) have shown potential for a variety of automotive applications — those CW has covered recently include support for a hybrid metal-composite automotive A-pillar, an automotive

    AOC Aliancys (recently renamed AOC; Collierville, Tenn., U.S. and Schaffhausen, Switzerland) has reported that as of March 3, it has a new setup for European distribution of its unsaturated polyester and vinyl ester resin products.  BÜFA Composite Systems (Raste

  The National Center for Advanced Materials Performance (NCAMP), a laboratory within Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research (Wichita, Kan., U.S.) has reported the release of its first approved thermoplastic material: Toray Cetex TC1225, wh

Cetim (Nantes, France) is already well-known for its QSP (Quilted Stratum Process) for industrialized production (< 1-minute cycle time) of thermoplastic composite parts, and also for its QSD (Quilted Stratum Design) software which optimizes such parts, including how to reuse productio

    Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.’s (Savannah, Ga., U.S.) all-new G700 features performance-enhancing winglets built by Daher (Paris, France), contributing to the twin-engine business jet’s fuel efficiency and ultralong-range. Daher produces the winglets —

  3M’s VHB tape LSE series is designed to eliminate design challenges associated with difficult-to-stick-to composites and low surface energy plastics. The tape works as a bonding solution for LSE substrates like polypropylene, thermoplastic olefins and thermoplastic elastomers, a