CW Blog

Construction

Building a house, with a 3-D printer

A Dutch project is working with Henkel on an effort to 3-D print an entire house to help evaluate material and manufacturing strategies.

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Automotive

Dow epoxy joins the fast-cure race

Dow Automotive made waves at JEC Europe with the debut of VORAFORCE 5300, a low-viscosity, <90-second cure epoxy for automotive composites molding applications.

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Aerospace

Reselling, reusing composite materials and parts

The more carbon and glass fiber is used, the more it's thrown away. How the industry copes with reusable material will matter much in the coming decades. What do you do with your usable scrap?

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Mass Transit

Composite flywheels: Finally picking up speed?

A wave of new composite flywheel developments for bus, rail, auto, heavy truck, construction equipment, and power grid support promises fuel savings, improved efficiency and reduced emissions — i.e. sustainability in the global quest for more energy.

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Aerospace

The market for OOA aerocomposites, 2013-2022

In the coming decade, out-of-autoclave technologies will increase composites penetration into primary flight structures.

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Medical

SAMPE Europe 2014/JEC Europe 2014 Preview

The annual conclave of SAMPE’s European segment and the JEC Europe show return to Paris this spring, promising to be bigger than ever before, reflecting the industry’s post-recession resurgence.

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Bonding

Certification of bonded composite primary structures

OEMs develop technology to quantify uncertainty in pursuit of the no-bolt bondline.

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Aerospace

Laser encoder enables highly accurate cutting of critical wingskins

To ensure machined part dimensional accuracy on Flow International Corp.’s (Kent, Wash.) new Composites Machining Center’s (CMC) gantry design, in x-axis lengths of 6 to 50m (19.5 to 162.5 ft), one of the keys is Renishaw plc’s (Gloucestershire, U.K.) HS10/HS20 laser encoder.

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Bending of composite material compression specimens

Dr. Donald F. Adams, president of Wyoming Test Fixtures (Salt Lake City, Utah) looks at the effect bending has on compression testing of composite specimens.

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Carbon Fibers

It's time for the U.S. to invest in advanced composites manufacturing

Consultant and president of Quickstep Composites (Dayton, Ohio) Dale Brosius suggests that it’s time for an Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (IMI), created under the proposed U.S. National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI).

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Adhesives

One for the history books?

HPC editor-in-chief Jeff Sloan wonders if a current and radical proposal for change in the way aerospace materials and processes are certified — namely, certification of design/simulation software — will find the brave advocates it will need to become a watershed in aerocomposite history.

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Aerospace

Juggling carbon fiber supply and demand?

Boeing plans to build 777X wings in Washington state. Toray has bought 400 acres in South Carolina to build — it is supposed — a new carbon fiber manufacturing facility. The carbon fiber supply and demand picture may be changing.

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