JEC World, the global trade show dedicated to composite materials is all set to take place at the Paris Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre, Paris from March 3-5, 2020
As the industry’s most significant annual event, JEC will host all the major players in a spirit of innovation, business and networking. And with 1,400 expected exhibitors and more than 45,000 expected professional visits from 112 countries, JEC World has become a global festival, and the undisputed reference for the composites industry.
A significant number of industry leaders and JEC World regulars have confirmed they will attend, and the industry’s leading countries and regions will be represented at 28 regional and international pavilions.
JEC World’s main objective is to promote the composites sector’s biggest innovative projects. More than 600 product launches are expected to be announced over the three days of the show, which will also feature awards ceremonies, competitions and exhibitions, including:
• The JEC Innovation Awards which celebrate innovative global composite projects, as well as fruitful collaborations between different players in the value chain. In 15 years, the Innovation Awards have bought together some 1,800 companies and recognised 177 projects.
• The Startup Booster is the leading startup competition in the world of composites. In its fourth year, it recognises innovations with the greatest impact on the industry and promotes them to a significant audience of decision-makers. The finalists will have their innovations showcased at JEC World’s ‘Startup Hub’.
• The Composites Challenge recognises selected PhD students for the quality of their research in the field of composites. Each researcher will present themselves and their ideas to a large and highly qualified audience.
• Innovation Planets will highlight the latest composite innovations in four display areas, each focused on specific themes (Mobility, Aero & Space, Construction & Energy, and Sports & LifeStyle).
• New 3D Printing and Bio-based solutions hubs will showcase the latest developments in these two domains from participating companies.
• A dedicated zone will present 50 years of expansion in the composites industry across 15 application sectors. This retrospective will put the future potential of the composites industry into clearer perspective.
In order to maximise their return on investment JEC World offers visitors and exhibitors access to effective marketing and relationship-building opportunities. More than 6,000 business meetings will take place over the three days of the show, tailored to the specific needs and priorities of these leaders while giving them the opportunity to strengthen their positions, get involved in new programs, and meet new partners.
JEC World also plays a key role in global knowledge sharing between the industry’s main players. To promote this openness, several technical conferences will be held over the three days presenting the latest in:
• Eco-design, sustainability and recycling: where are composites?
• Concrete and Composites: the perfect mix
• Biomimicry: Nature shows us the most effective solutions
• Carbon: What materials and processes for the future?
• Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence – From design to production 4.0
• Fibre and nano-reinforced materials fill gaps in additive manufacturing
The Agora Stage, a platform for exchanges and sharing that is open to all, will host a number of high-profile speakers who will share their vision of the composites market and all the highlights of the event. French ‘Flying Man’ and Flyboard inventor, Franky Zapata, founder and CEO of the Zapata Company, will talk about how innovative materials and engineering concepts can democratize personal air mobility.
And for the second year running, JEC Group will present the results of the JEC Observer (the Overview of the Composites Market, 2019-2023) which is the go-to barometer of the composites industry.

Finally, the ‘Country on Stage’ will give three countries with strong composites ecosystems a chance to show off their achievements and potential, with the Netherlands already confirmed. In the form of keynote presentations, representatives of each country will present their industrial ambitions and business assets to a global audience.
All these features the organisers claim will make JEC World 2020 a global festival of composites, a place of business, discovery and inspiration.
Source: https://www.aero-mag.com/a-global-festival-for-composites/

A modern airplane's fuselage is made from multiple sheets of different composite materials, like so many layers in a phyllo-dough pastry. Once these layers are stacked and molded into the shape of a fuselage, the structures are wheeled into warehouse-sized ovens and autoclaves, where the layers fuse together to form a resilient, aerodynamic shell.

Now MIT engineers have developed a method to produce aerospace-grade composites without the enormous ovens and pressure vessels. The technique may help to speed up the manufacturing of airplanes and other large, high-performance composite structures, such as blades for wind turbines.

The researchers detail their new method in a paper published today in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces.

"If you're making a primary structure like a fuselage or wing, you need to build a pressure vessel, or autoclave, the size of a two- or three-story building, which itself requires time and money to pressurize," says Brian Wardle, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. "These things are massive pieces of infrastructure. Now we can make primary structure materials without autoclave pressure, so we can get rid of all that infrastructure."

Wardle's co-authors on the paper are lead author and MIT postdoc Jeonyoo Lee, and Seth Kessler of Metis Design Corporation, an aerospace structural health monitoring company based in Boston.

Out of the oven, into a blanket

In 2015, Lee led the team, along with another member of Wardle's lab, in creating a method to make aerospace-grade composites without requiring an oven to fuse the materials together. Instead of placing layers of material inside an oven to cure, the researchers essentially wrapped them in an ultrathin film of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). When they applied an electric current to the film, the CNTs, like a nanoscale electric blanket, quickly generated heat, causing the materials within to cure and fuse together.

With this out-of-oven, or OoO, technique, the team was able to produce composites as strong as the materials made in conventional airplane manufacturing ovens, using only 1 percent of the energy.

> source

Planning to push the envelope of production car speed records, John Hennessey and his team are building a world-class supercar. We knew it would have some composite elements in the body, but the big automakers are now going back to the drawing board. That’s because their latest upload shows the Hennessey Venom F5 carbon fiber in-detail.

This work of art has been cooked in an autoclave as one piece. It has reinforcements around the pedal box and subframe mounts, and they are as refined as anything from Europe. To take on the likes of Pagani and Lamborghini, twin-turbo Chevrolet V8 will be mounted behind the cockpit. Codenamed “Fury” it will send 1,817 horsepower & 1, 193 lb-ft to the rear wheels.

> source

SGL Carbon: Ultra-Light Landing Gear Made Of Carbon Fiber Composites For Air Taxis

WIESBADEN, Germany — January 20, 2020 — SGL Carbon will begin serial production of landing gear made from braided carbon fiber material early this year. The landing skids will be installed in around 500 air taxis worldwide over the next two years.

The air taxis will be powered by several electric motors. To optimize the range of the taxis, every single gram counts. Measuring about two meters in length and 1.5 meters in width, the ultra-light landing skid will weigh less than three kilograms, making it about 15 percent lighter than a similar component made from aluminum. This increases the potential flight time capacity of the air taxi which is a key differentiator for the air taxi operator.

“With with our landing gear we help to shape this very new, promising application of manned, autonomous civil aviation. This involvement also demonstrates our wide range of services. From engineering, to prototype manufacture, to serial production with our own materials — all of our competences along the entire value chain made a contribution to the project,” emphasized Dr. Andreas Erber, head of the Aerospace segment of the Composites – Fibers & Materials business unit at SGL Carbon.

The landing gear was developed in close collaboration between customer experts and specialists from SGL Carbon. The carbon fibers for the component are produced at the SGL Carbon plant in Muir of Ord, Scotland. The final part is being manufactured at the SGL Carbon site in Innkreis, Austria.

> source

The production volume is 100 tons per month.
It is planned to increase it to 150 tons per month.

The Governor of the Novgorod Region, Nikitin Andrey Sergeyevich, visited a new enterprise that produces products in the region with higher characteristics than fiberglass.

Magmanit LLC bought the workshops from the Novgorod fiberglass plant and launched the production of basalt fiber. The first batch of products was released in August. Currently, the production volume is 100 tons per month. It is planned to increase it to 150 tons/month. In the future, with favorable market conditions, the volume of production may grow up to 7500 tons per year.

“Research on basalt fiber has been carried out for decades since the Soviet era, but no one was able to create a full-fledged production, because it was necessary to configure the technology. And such a production opened in Veliky Novgorod ”,– noted the head of the region during a visit to production.

According to the founder of Magmanit LLC, Sergey Perelman, the plant has already begun production of continuous basalt fibers. The field of application of the products is composite materials, basalt-plastic reinforcement, construction, including road construction. The company is ready to compete in the global market.

“Our products are a serious competitor to fiberglass, which is used today very widely in many types of industries. Basalt fiber is as inexpensive as fiberglass, but more durable.”
– emphasized the CEO for LLC Magmanit Andrey Tolstoshein.

These products completely replace fiberglass, but are durable. Many enterprises use it in the construction industry. In the Novgorod region, basalt fiber is planned to be used in road repairs.
According to the regional government, the financing of the project amounted to 150 million rubles. The company created 130 jobs. At this stage, the company is exploring the domestic and foreign market. With a positive result, production will be increased.

> source

Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, Russia’s Navy Commander.

New generation ships for Russian Navy

Russia plans to significantly increase the use of composites in its domestic military shipbuilding in years to come, according to some of the highest commanders of the Russian Navy and industry’s analysts.

According to Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, Russia’s Navy Commander, Russia is involved in the building of a new generation of military ships, that will be based on fiberglass reinforced composites. According to Evmenov, the use of such materials will provide additional strength, manoeuvrability and survivability to ships, particularly against magnetic mines.

“It is planned, the application of composites will take place by the use of contact moulding method, when reinforcing material is laid manually and impregnated with a binder,” a spokesperson said.

> source

This company has a solution to perishable carbon composites

A Bothell firm says its machines can manufacture carbon composites on site and reduce waste.

BOTHELL — Carbon-fiber composites, the materials used to build airplanes and wind turbines, are a lot like fresh fruits and veggies.

They’re perishable. They require refrigeration — and when they hit their expiration date, they’ve got to be tossed.

SX Composites, a Bothell startup, hopes to lower the manufacturing and storage costs tied to the production of composite materials, steps that could reduce the industry’s carbon footprint.

Some 30% to 40% of composite materials are scrapped due to their short shelf life, he said. That’s right up there with fruits and vegetables, which make up 39% of food waste in the U.S.

Because of the chemistry involved in making a carbon fiber composite, the material must be kept chilled.

To keep it fresh, it goes into a special fridge, but it takes a boatload of electricity to store in a refrigerator the size of a small house.

ASX has developed a line of patented machines that can manufacture composite materials on site, as needed, and in small batches.

Composite materials have been on the scene since the 1960s, but their use has exploded in the past 20 years.

Formed from graphite, carbon fibers are mixed with resin to create a composite material that’s five times stronger than steel but lighter in weight.

Lighter and more durable than most metals, composites have become a staple in the aerospace and wind turbine industry and are making inroads among high-end automakers.

The entire 235-foot wing of Boeing’s new 777X is made of a carbon fiber composite and, according to Boeing, that makes it the largest piece of composite material in the world. Plus, nearly half of the Boeing 787 is comprised of carbon fiber reinforced plastic and other composites.

> source

Mikrosam partners UD-CCM on automated tape placement

The University of Delaware’s Center for Composite Materials (UD-CCM) has selected Mikrosam and its US representative Composite Automation LLC to deliver an integrated ATP machine for automatic placement of dry, thermoset and thermoplastic tape. Equipment specifications include placement of thin to standard ply thickness tape (up to 1-inch in width), laser and IR heating with in-situ temperature control and thermal camera feedback, and horizontal axes allowing manufacturing of full-scale prototypes (10 feet in length).

Mikrosam is designating UD-CCM as its primary academic partner in the US providing open software and hardware access enabling R&D to develop new material solutions, in-situ process control and path/placement optimization. Robotic tape placement of composites in dry, thermoset and thermoplastic formats enables precision control of fibre orientation for high-performance applications with the benefit to meet higher production rates.

“The Mikrosam ATP equipment significantly upgrades UD-CCM’s current capabilities allowing R&D of primary structures at rate production. Initial studies will evaluate placement of thin ply materials to support current projects with NASA. UD-CCM novel Tailorable Universal Feedstock for Forming (TuFF) material developed under a four-year DARPA program enables low areal weight, steerable tape options allowing variable stiffness designs for weight critical applications, tailored blank formation for forming of aerospace and automotive parts as well as wider steerable tape to drastically increase productivity.”

Mikrosam offers one of the most cost-competitive and proven ATP solutions with many advancements for maximum productivity. Designed as an integrated, modular, and upgradeable ATP work-cell, the 8-axis robotic AFP machine is capable of automated and precise placement of dry/thermoset and thermoplastic tape. Mikrosam’s ATP heads are a premier tool for researchers in advanced composites allowing access to machine code for integration of 3rd party equipment.

“The market for automated layup of thermoplastic and thermoset composites demands flexible equipment to ensure maximum utilization in exploring new techniques and applications. When combined with our sophisticated control for in-situ consolidation of thermoplastic composites and UD-CCM’s expertise, the new partnership will provide novel process solutions for industry,” states Dimitar Bogdanoski, Sales Manager at Mikrosam.

> source

JEC World 2020 postponed to May 12-14

Coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak and concerns about exhibitor and attendee safety drove the decision. JEC World is the composites industry’s largest trade event.

JEC Group (Paris, France), producer of the JEC World exhibition, announced on Feb. 26 that its 2020 show, originally scheduled for March 3-5, is being postponed to May 12-14. The decision to postpone was made after JEC Group’s latest assessment of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak and after consulting its board and key stakeholders of the composites industry.

JEC Group says the recent spread of COVID-19 in new countries last week, and especially countries that play an important role in the composite materials industry such as China, South Korea and Italy, has obliged the JEC World organization team and key stakeholders of the industry to reassess the current situation. Increased travel restrictions from authorities, but also at corporate level, both from exhibiting and visiting companies, have drastically reduced the potential attendance to the show, says JEC Group. Moreover, the latest developments of the virus have significantly increased the concerns of participating companies about the health of their employees. JEC Group has the same concerns, having health and safety of their exhibitors, visitors, partners and staff as the number one priority.

JEC Group says it is aware that this decision will require industry professionals, exhibitors, partners, engineers, researchers and buyers to re-schedule their attendance, which will have a significant impact on their organizations, as it will for the JEC Group. The company said in a statement, “We trust though that given the current situation, which is continuously evolving, everyone involved will understand our common and industry decision.”

Questions regarding the postponement should be directed to the JEC Hotline: hotline@jeccomposites.com, +33 (0)1 43 84 86 83.

> source

Dear Exhibitors & Visitors!

Composite-Expo 2020 is postponed to June 23-25, 2020, Expocentre Fairgrounds, Moscow, Russia.

According to the Moscow authority order regarding COVID-19 situation, at the moment the staff members of COMPOSITE-EXPO work remotely.

Please contact us by email info@composite-expo.com or call the mobile number +7 (968) 973-27-92.