CW Blog

Epoxies

Higher performance, lower cost helicopter rotor blades developed with OOA, FAA-qualified composites

Erickson Inc. and partner Toray Advanced Composites replaced legacy aluminum S-64 main rotor blades with out-of-autoclave, multi-material composite alternatives.

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Carbon Fibers

What makes a CW Top Shop?

With three years of surveys accumulated, the CW Top Shops data tell us much about the strengths of high-performing composites fabricators. 

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Designing for automated composites manufacturing of low-volume aerostructures

The commercial aerospace industry is heavily focused on design for efficient high-rate manufacturing, but there is still need for automated, affordable fabrication of low-rate aerostructures.

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Work In Progress

Moving toward portable, digitized composite part repair

Using digital twin technology, American GFM’s portable, automated inspection and scarfing system shows potential for on-site, data-driven composite aircraft part repair.

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Infusion

Tech Table: Vacuum bagging supplies

This is the fifth in a series of Tech Tables and comprises vacuum bagging material data provided by suppliers.  

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CW Trending

The future of composites in wind, hydrogen applications: CW Trending Episode 5

In this episode of CW Trending, Hexcel's Claude Despierres discusses current and future demands for composite materials, especially carbon fiber, in the wind energy industry, as well as supply, cost and performance of these materials in the hydrogen storage market.

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Pressure Vessels

CAMX 2021 Show Daily highlights composite technology innovations

As the CAMX media sponsor, CompositesWorld reported on several new or improved developments on display, from CAMX Award and ACE Award winners, to the keynote speaker and interesting technologies.

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Sustainability

2021 CW Top Shops highlights strengths of top composites facilities

CW learned from some of this year’s designated Top Shops about what makes facilities stand out, from diverse capabilities to Industry 4.0 and sustainability.

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Aerospace

SAM|XL develops closed-loop manufacturing for composites

Collaborative R&D center at TU Delft develops sensor- and robot-based automation for Composites 4.0 manufacturing, including STUNNING project for welded assembly of a thermoplastic composite fuselage demonstrator.

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Model-driven design and analysis for sustainable lightweight design

Fraunhofer IGCV uses graph-based design language for fast creation of design variants and simultaneous evaluation of ecological and economic performance along the entire life cycle.

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Riding pretty: Hybrid upper control arms move to pickups

Short-glass/PA6 with metallic inserts reduces mass, running torque, joint wear on the Ram 1500 half-ton pickup truck.

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Epoxies

The importance of resin selection

Explore how resins can affect a composite’s properties and why we should consider resin choice with the same significance as fiber.

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Composite raw materials