Sara Black

Sara Black Senior Technical Editor Emeritus

Prepregs

Redesigning for simplicity and economy

Military OEM makes the switch from sandwich construction to compression molding to optimize composite aerospace part.

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Thermoplastics

Reinforced engineered polymer selected for cargo door fastener

On a major new commercial aircraft program, self-fixturing nut-plates provided by Click Bond (Carson City, Nev.) eliminate the need for special tools, clamps and drills, expediting the process of installing attachment bracket hardware.

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Aerospace

Spread-tow fabric secures ultralight aircraft’s weight goal

Shark Aero (Hlboké, Slovak Republic) designed its composite-airframed, single-seat prototype ultralight aircraft (ULA), the Shark UL, with spread-tow carbon fiber woven fabrics to reduce weight.

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Aerospace

Q&A: Embraer's Marco Túlio Pellegrini

High-Performance Composites' technical editor Sara Black interviews Marco Túlio Pellegrini, the senior VP of operations and the COO of the Executive Jets division of Embraer SA (São José dos Campos, Brazil).

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Infrastructure

Triaxial fabric wrap saves critical highway pier

The Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, Ky.), and sister research group the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, recently completed the first bridge pier repair demonstration project to use triaxial carbon fabric.

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Carbon Fibers

Designing the largest solar-powered vacht

All-composite catamaran Tûranor continues its global circumnavigation, using only the power of the sun.

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PLM software streamlines robotic cell development

FASTCURVE and FASTTIP, part of FASTSUITE from CENIT (Stuttgart, Germany), have been used successfully by Hyde Group Holdings Ltd. (Cheshire, U.K.) to optimize composite wing manufacturing.

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Solar panel supports: New rooftop system uses lightweighting strategies

A solar-energy start-up's prototype solar photovoltaic (PV) modules harnesses the benefits of injection-molded composites to solve problems often encountered in flat-roof solar-panel installations.

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Aerospace

EAA AirVenture 2011 air show

Plenty of “oh, my gosh” to go ’round in Oshkosh.

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RTM

Composite propeller for Royal Navy minehunter

Composite-for-metal replacement brings multiple benefits.

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Software speeds tape layer production, optimizes precision

the Siemens Aerospace Center of Excellence's (Elk Grove Village, Ill.) developed the Siemens SINUMERIK 840D CNC system speeds production on a large ATL machine at the former Boeing Wichita plant (now Spirit AeroSystems) in Wichita, Kan.

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Press refurbishment a cost-effective strategy for improving production

When a U.S.-based molder of composite friction materials used in aircraft braking systems recently upgraded its factory capabilities, French Oil Mill Machinery Co. (Piqua, Ohio) agreed to rebuild 10 of the molder’s 400-ton presses

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Composite raw materials