CW Blog

Adhesives

Freefall: Adhesive helps composite lifeboat achieve world record

This composite freefall lifeboat successfully endures the required 65.1m/213.6-ft DNV drop test, setting a new world record for the highest lifeboat freefall.

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Wind/Energy

Pipes vs. vessels

CT editor-in-chief Jeff Sloan notes the value of composite pressure vessel standards in the growing market for seawater desalination.

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Aerospace

Lisa Airplanes rises, falls, rises again

Creative use of carbon fiber helped make Lisa Airplanes' Akoya LSA a possibility, and with some fresh financing, it's now on its way to becoming reality.

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Pressure Vessels

Vestas video documents assembly of world's first 8-MW wind turbine

Wind turbines are getting bigger. Vestas has begun operation of its V164-8.0 MW turbine, with 80m blades, at a Danish test center.

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Marine

Pushing the limits of infusion

Polyworx BV used RTM-Worx, semipermeable membranes, a special feed and vacuum line layout and MMD machines to infuse a 62m minesweeper with degassed resin.

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At NAIAS, composites not difficult to find

With CAFE requirements steadily increasing each year, en route to 54.5 mpg by 2025, automakers of all stripes are working composites into new and concept cars.

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VIDEO: Helicopter Drop Test

NASA evaluates composites’ ability to improve helicopter crashworthiness by dropping a helicopter fuselage to simulate a severe survivable crash according to military and commercial transport requirements.

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Aerospace

GKN Aerospace funds new aero-engine composites technology

GKN-led G5Demo project will pursue new composites technologies at Linköping-based ACAB subsidiary, aimed to cut aero-engine CO2-emissions in half by 2020.

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Aerospace

Boeing, Airbus neck and neck at end of 2013

Both planemakers set records for orders, deliveries and backlogs in 2013, as the year just ended looks to be one of the healthiest for the commercial aerospace industry in more than 10 years.

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Infrastructure

Composites boon from hydraulic fracturing?

Hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as frac'ing — has become an efficient, if controversial, method for oil and gas extraction. Composite materials are helping pave the way in this very demanding application.

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Wind/Energy

Carbon Fiber 2013 report, part 3: Wind energy

Wind and carbon fiber were, at one time, inexorably linked. But that may not be the case — at least for now.

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Aerospace

BMI and benzoxazine battle for future OOA aerocomposites

Offering weight, cost and process advantages, these “hot zone” resins are moving down the thermometer and into out-of-autoclave structural applications and autoclavable tooling now dominated by epoxies.

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