Sara Black Senior Technical Editor Emeritus

Infrastructure 4 Jun 2018

OMAX waterjet brings success to one-man machine shop

RPM has been waterjet cutting a lot of composites, to the point that the company has gained a reputation as a composite cutting specialist.

Pressure Vessels 1 Jun 2018

Improving composites processing with automated inspection, Part II

Three additional inspection equipment providers describe their development of inline production quality-control systems.

Epoxies 28 May 2018

This foiling racer is crazy fast thanks to composites

The Exocet racer’s hull and its foils, designed via computer model, are fabricated using hand layup and resin infusion methods, respectively, with PRO-SET epoxy.

Carbon Fibers 13 May 2018

Getting carbon fiber cost down

4M Carbon Fiber Corp. says its objective is to demonstrate that standard modulus carbon fiber can be made from textile grade PAN precursor using significantly less energy and in less than half the processing time, thus cutting carbon fiber manufacturing cost by about 50%. Plasma oxidation is the key.

Glass Fibers 6 May 2018

Pultruded composites market growing, says EPTA

The European Pultrusion Technology Association (EPTA, Frankfurt, Germany) has published an in-depth report on its highly successful 2018 conference, held in Vienna on March 1-2, 2018. The 12-page document, World Pultrusion Conference 2018: Attractive Long-Term Prospects for Pultruded Composites, is available to download from the EPTA website.

Weaving 1 May 2018

Big composite container protects vital satellite

Before they experience the vibrations of launch and the rigors of the space environment, satellites first have to make it to the launch pad. Pagnotta Engineering Inc. (PEI, Exton, PA, US) was called upon by Orbital ATK (Dulles, VA, US) to design a shipping box to protect Orbital ATK’s GEOStar-3 geosynchronous satellite bus structure, during shipment.

Wind/Energy 27 Apr 2018

Euro study seeks optimally damage-tolerant infrastructure composites

A research project involving participants from five European countries, Damage Controlled Composite Materials, will seek more damage-tolerant composite materials for bridges, buildings, wind turbine blades and offshore structures.

Marine 23 Apr 2018

Flexible cure prepreg finds use in marine and wind

It’s almost time for the 2018 Tour de France — no, not that one with the bicycles, but the Tour de France à la Voile. Hexcel (Stamford, CT, US) composite materials have been used for the race’s trimaran the DIAM 24’s mast construction from the outset.

Sustainability 17 Apr 2018

Multi-material shipping container for pharmaceuticals

This past week, CW was made aware of a new, high-tech and multi-material unit load device (ULD) shipping container solution from an innovative container company called Smart Containers Group (Zurich, Switzerland).

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Sheet Molding Compound 10 Apr 2018

An SMC machinery provider adds automation

About the time that I started writing about the composites industry, I was introduced to the concept of SMC – sheet molding compound. I was intrigued this year at the JEC World in Paris to meet with a German company, Schmidt & Heinzmann (S&H, Bruchsal, Germany).

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