Winners announced for the 2020 CAMX Award

The Composites and Advanced Materials Expo (CAMX; Diamond Bar, Calif., U.S.) announced on Sept. 22 the winners of the seventh annual CAMX Award, sponsored by Composite One (Arlington, Ill., U.S.), during the virtual opening general session. The CAMX Award recognizes two innovations that will significantly impact composites and advanced materials. The award is divided into two categories that embody the spirit of CAMX — Combined Strength and Unsurpassed Innovation. Finalists for this award were announced earlier last week. 

According to CAMX, the Combined Strength Award acknowledges a product that incorporates composites materials that solves a problem through teamwork and collaboration, and the Unsurpassed Innovation Award celebrates a product with a design that incorporates low-cost materials for high-volume applications that can change the outlook of a particular market.

The winner of this year's Combined Strength Award is 3M Co. (St. Paul, Minn., U.S.) for its entry on lightweight, lower-cost composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPV) for hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), providing extended vehicle range through the use of 3M Matrix Resins. The carbon fiber vessel reportedly uses 3M Matrix Resin 8833, a nanocalcite-modified epoxy with high tensile modulus, that imparts an increase in fiber delivered strength (FDS) to the composites. This increase in FDS is said to enable the redesign of these thick-walled structures, reducing weight, eliminating expensive fibers and lowering manufacturing costs. In FCEV applications where the outer dimensions of the tank are fixed, a redesign can use an expanded liner volume, thus increasing vehicle range.

The winner of this year's Unsurpassed Innovation Award is Mighty Buildings Inc. for its entry on manufactured polymeric-based UV cured structures for residential construction. Mighty Buildings produces building components for residential construction manufactured with a 3D printing process using polymeric UV-cured materials. The manufactured structures are intended to be used as building elements defined as a portion or entirety of a wall, floor and roof of the building. Mighty Buildings invented Light Stone Material (LSM), a photopolymer thermoset composite that is said to be instantly cured with light during the layer-to-layer extrusion process. The manufacturing method uses large-scale additive manufacturing that allows production of building components of different shapes and sizes with complex geometries. Both the LSM material and 3D printing process are UL certified.

For more information on the 2020 CAMX Awards, visit here.