Turkish Aerospace, Boeing partner to produce thermoplastic composites

Per the partnership, Boeing will provide technical support to establish a fully automated facility in Turkey for the production of thermoplastic aerospace components, as well as training technical personnel.

R&D company, Turkish Aerospace (Ankara, Turkey) announced on Nov. 12 a partnership with Boeing (Chicago, Ill., U.S.) that aims to develop thermoplastic manufacturing capabilities in Turkey, as part of the region’s continued effort to develop high-tech products locally. For the collaboration, Boeing will provide technical support for Turkish Aerospace to establish a fully automated facility for the production of thermoplastic materials for the aerospace industry.

“We are very excited to sign a new cooperation with our strategic partner Boeing,” Turkish Aerospace CEO, Professor Temel Kotil says. “We look forward to continue increasing the direction of new production technologies in the aviation sector. As the company that guides and leads the most important projects of Turkey, we will have high-quality thermoplastic part production, which will reduce cost significantly.”
Aysem Sargin, managing director Boeing Turkey, adds that this agreement adds a new dimension to the longstanding partnership between Turkish Aerospace and Boeing. “It also expands the existing technology collaboration between Boeing and Turkey under the National Aerospace Initiative (NAI), which is Boeing’s investment plan for Turkey, announced in 2017. This is a reflection of our continued commitment to the country and to our partners.”

Turkish Aerospace and Boeing’s research is focused on designing high-quality thermoplastic parts in a high-capacity rapid production system for aerospace use. Initial results show that High Efficiency Affordable Rapid Thermoplastic (HEART), can reduce the production cycle and process costs by 30% compared to conventional composites.

This partnership will include the training of technical personnel to develop local expertise in this field and enable Turkey to produce thermoplastics that meets the highest global standards.

> photo: Turkish Aerospace
> source

Russian Scientists Create a Particularly Durable Pseudoplastic Material

Composite materials, which are employed in modern technology, have great rigidity, strength, and fragility. Scientists have learned how to produce unique composites that have unusual pseudoplasticity.

The professor from South Ural State University Sergei Sapozhnikov, together with colleagues from KU Leuven, Belgium, have developed a pseudoplastic hybrid of two initially fragile carbon plastics. The work employs an original theory, proposed by Prof Sapozhnikov. An article on the new pseudoplastic CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced polymer) has been published in Composites Part B: Engineering, the journal with the highest JCR-rank (2019) in the composite materials field.

Durable composite of fragile components

Carbon fiber composite materials have been used for decades. Their use is remarkably widespread in aviation and astronautics. These materials are light-weight, but at the same time possess extraordinary strength. However, composite materials are relatively fragile. If a structure made of such a material is affected by a force slightly greater than the calculated value, then the object is destroyed instantly. Therefore, scientists who study composites are proposing alternative options for pseudoplastic non-fragile materials. To create them, different composites are combined: carbon fiber and fiberglass, carbon fiber and organic plastic, etc.

Professor of the Institute of Engineering and Technology Sergei Sapozhnikov, together with professors Yentl Svolfs and Stepan Lomov from the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium), proposed to produce an experimental material based on two brittle carbon plastics – ultra-high-strength and ultra-high-modulus.

The joint work was supported with a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF), by the administration of the Catholic University of Leuven and the Japanese company TORAY, a supplier of materials and sponsor of the Chair for Composite Materials in the Catholic University of Leuven. Sergei Sapozhnikov visited KU Leuven to carry on his research on the unique technological, testing, and analytical equipment. The original theory, developed by Prof Sapozhnikov, allowed a clever design of the tested materials.

It was formerly considered that only thin-layer hybrid composites possess the pseudoplastic properties. The team of scientists showed that the effect of pseudoplasticity can be obtained on composites with standard layer thicknesses. It is only important to have enough fracture toughness at the interface of two layers. The team described this property in their first article.

“I have used two hybrid composites that have never been used to create one material with a unique property called pseudoplasticity. Such materials do not failure suddenly. First, they are initially elastically deformed, then accumulate microdamage, and then destroyed. Pseudoplasticity is necessary to make materials more durable. These hybrid composites have higher strength, but much lower density than steel. With the help of my software program, we created such materials and experimentally proved that these composites can be used,” Sergei Sapozhnikov says. Pseudoplastic composites are the basis of “smart structures”

The collaboration with the University of Leuven is not accomplished: the team intends to test how the new material will resist repeated loads. Professor Valter Carvelli of Politecnico di Milano, Italy, is also collaborating on this topic. The research will be further developed by the study of polymers wear resistance.

Sergei Sapozhnikov also noticed that the data obtained by the international team can at present be used in practice around the world.

“We hope to establish the properties of pseudoplastic objects made of composite materials, which were created in SUSU. This is necessary to increase reliability and prevent sudden destruction of the material. After all, pseudoplastic composites, due to the accumulation of fibers rupture that is more rigid and fragile, warn that complete destruction of the material is approaching,” Sergei Sapozhnikov says.

Research in the field of materials along with the smart industry and ecology represents the strategic directions of the scientific-educational activities at South Ural State University.

SUSU is a member of the 5-100 Project intended to increase the competitiveness of the university among the world's leading research and academic centers.

> source

Skoltech optimizes pultrusion process productivity

The institute analyzed the influence of pulling speed on the structural characteristics of L-shaped profiles, analyzing the interconnection between a variety of characteristics.

A group of scientists from the Skoltech Center for Design, Manufacturing and Materials (CDMM, Moscow, Russia) and University of Salerno (Italy) have reportedly improved pultrusion process productivity by optimizing pulling speed and structural parameters. According to the research results, which were published in the Composites Structures journal, Skoltech discovered and analyzed the interconnection between pulling speed of pultrusion and severity of manufactured induced shape distortions, matrix cracking and delaminations, as well as mechanical characteristics.

Out of the many current composite manufacturing processes, Skoltech says, pultrusion is considerably the most efficient, combining high production rates with low material waste, characteristics that are continuously sought after, particularly in the construction market.

The pultrusion process optimization involves careful consideration of the many parameters influencing the quality of the final product, the institute adds. One of the parameters to be considered is the pulling speed. Maximizing the pulling speed while preserving the quality of the produced profiles is necessary to increase efficiency and, thus, the pultrusion process's profitability.

#Skoltech #UniversityOfSalerno

> source

New Alfa Romeo EV has carbon fiber bodywork

Bercella says that it has designed and manufactured the carbon fiber bodywork of the new Alfa Romeo Giulia electric race car.

According to the company, the 500kW vehicle will compete in the Pure ETCR (Electric Touring Car Racing), the first world touring championship dedicated to electric cars scheduled for 2021.

Besides the bodywork, Bercella also plans to design a number of electric powertrain structures for the race.

According to the company, its design balanced aerodynamic requirements with safety in structural performance, for instance through installing Kevlar anti-intrusion bars inside the bumpers.

#CarbonFiber

> source

Composite resins price change report

CW’s running summary of resin price change announcements from major material suppliers that serve the composites manufacturing industry.

Nov. 24, 2020
AOC has announced a price increase of 8% for all products sold in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Latin America, as a result of rapid and significant escalation of costs for key raw material ingredients and freight.
Effective for all orders shipping on or after Dec. 18, 2020.

Nov. 16, 2020
AOC announces a price increase of €150 per ton for its entire Composites portfolio sold in Europe and the Middle East.
The price increase will take effect for all new deliveries after Dec. 1, 2020 or as soon as contracts allow. This price increase is in addition to the increase that was announced on Nov. 2 2020 (listed below).

Nov. 3, 2020
Polynt Composites announced that, as a consequence of the continuous escalation of UPRs raw materials and logistic costs, prices are increasing to €80 per ton effective Nov. 1, or as agreements allow, for the complete line of UPRs, vinyl esters and gelcoats in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Nov. 2, 2020
Huber Carbonates, LLC, a subsidiary of J.M. Huber Corporation, announced a price increase for its industrial calcium carbonate products generally ranging from 5-9%. The price increase does not apply to Huber’s food and USP calcium carbonate grades.
Increase effective Jan. 1, 2021, or as current contracts allow.

#adhesives #bulkmoldingcompound #aramidfiber

> source

Carbon fiber or fiberglass: choosing the correct composite

You wouldn’t attempt to delicately manicure a bonsai tree with a chainsaw, even if it would be entertaining to watch. This may seem obvious, but there are many fields where selecting the right tool is a vital ingredient to success. In the composites industry, customers often request carbon fiber when in fact fiberglass is a better suited high-performance material for their needs. Here, Kim Sjödahl, Senior Vice President, R&D and Technology from global composites producer Exel Composites, explains why carbon fiber is not always the best option.

Carbon fiber is often hailed as the material of the future. When people think of carbon fiber, they’re likely to envision slick sports cars with doors that open vertically or, if they are industry focused, wind turbine blades longer than previously imaginable. For most composite producers, carbon fiber is the material that gets customers and their design engineers interested in composites — before they realise that other composites such as fiberglass are better suited to their project.

Sports cars, road bikes and professional tennis rackets are all extensively made using carbon fiber. This is because these applications require a low density and high ultimate tensile strength material to maximise weight advantages. However, this doesn’t mean that carbon fiber is perfect for every application.

Raising the glass
In many cases when clients are looking for carbon fiber, the material that better suits their needs is fiberglass. In fact, it could be said that fiberglass was the first ever high-performance material, with its conception dating back to before the Second World War. Fiberglass has proven its usefulness over and over, from use in door or window frame profiles to telescoping poles, in automotive applications to rail joints and telecommunications radomes. If you have the impression that fiberglass is reserved for making row boats, it may be time to take another look at what else it can achieve
Fiberglass has a very good ultimate tensile strength, higher than most metals. It’s a great insulator, with a very low coefficient of thermal expansion, and it is corrosion and weather resistant. For example, the ITER fusion reactor, a tokamak style fusion reactor being developed by 35 collaborating nations, uses fiberglass composite pre-compression rings (PCR) to hold the reactor together.

The ITER fusion reactor uses the PCRs to absorb the deformation and fatigue from magnets that hold the plasma, which is heated to 150 million degrees Celsius, in place. Fiberglass was selected for the PCRs because of the material’s specific high-performance mechanical properties.

Fiberglass has withstood the test of time. Since its early uses in World War II, the material has yet to be replaced with a better alternative. This is largely due to the material’s mechanical properties combined with its competitive cost and design flexibility.

Tailor made
With composites, it is also important to note that the choice is not binary. At Exel Composites, we offer a range of pultruded and pull-wound composite solutions. We manufacture many carbon fiber products along with fiberglass and hybrid combinations, where we use both carbon and glass fibers.

Deciding on the best material choice requires a clear understanding of the desired application and product specifications, and we first work with customers to develop a mutual understanding. Based on this understanding, your composites supplier should use their materials science expertise to design your ideal composite product. This discussion should include costs, particularly as raw carbon fiber materials come at a higher cost point than fiberglass.

Tailoring a composite can range from a specific mix of fibers to give certain properties, to managing the fiber alignment and resin formulation. For example, a fiberglass tube could require extra reinforcements along one side of the geometry. In this case, carbon fibers could be strategically incorporated into the tube along with the fiberglass at the point of manufacturing to create a strong hybrid structure that meets design requirements while considering cost optimization.

Having the correct tool at your disposal is important whether you are trying to prune a bonsai tree or upgrade a piece of infrastructure. While it may seem more appealing to use a chainsaw, or carbon fiber, lower-key choices can sometimes be the better option for the task at hand.

#fiberglass #CarbonFiber

> source

ESI contributes to Nissan’s carbon fibre parts production

ESI Group, a global player in Virtual Prototyping software and services for industry, supports Nissan Motor Company in its production process that speeds up the development of car parts made from carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP).

Safety, comfort and autonomy are key outcomes for consumers. To face this situation, automakers continuously innovate in different fields such as lightweight to help them achieve their expected results. For this purpose, the use of new materials can be key. Commonly used in other industries such as aerospace and with promising capabilities, CFRP were too time-consuming and too expensive to industrialize for the automotive sector.

“We have always considered CFRP as a material for future generations of cars. But when it comes to reality, CFRP can be used only for limited models and appears to be more challenging for mass market production. Indeed, costs are high, and complex designs are required to shape CFRP. The challenge was to industrialise its production process in order to reduce costs and development time,” explained Hideyuki Sakamoto, EVP of Nissan Motor Co.

ESI Group has been supporting Nissan’s CFRP challenge since 2015 in the evolution of its industrial product design and manufacturing methodologies for various vehicle models. The partnership was strengthened in 2018 with the CFRP mass production project.

#CarbonFibreReinforcedPlastics #CFRP #Nissan

> source

Airbus concludes Zephyr HAPS flight test campaign

The composites-intensive Zephyr HAPS satellite is a stratospheric unmanned aerial system, which, with this recently successful flight test, is one step closer to providing local satellite-like services.

Airbus Defence and Space (Farnborough, U.K.) reported on Dec. 3 that it has successfully completed a new test flight campaign for its composites-intensive Zephyr High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) in Arizona. Zephyr, a solar–electric, stratospheric unmanned aerial system (UAS), harnesses the sun’s rays, running exclusively on solar power above weather and conventional air traffic. According to Airbus, the station fulfills a capability gap complementary to satellites, UAVs and manned aircraft, and will provide persistent local satellite-like services, have potential to revolutionize disaster management and be able to provide communications to the most unconnected parts of the world.

The 2020 flight campaign was a success, says Airbus, despite global slowdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It focused on aircraft agility, control and operations to build upon previous campaigns, which have already proven the day-and-night stratospheric persistence of the unmanned aerial system (UAS), which is essential in military and commercial markets.

In July 2018, the Zephyr team conducted a successful test flight campaign when Zephyr S flew in the stratosphere for nearly 26 days (25 days, 23 hours and 57 minutes‎). It remains the longest flight duration of an aircraft ever made without refueling. The aircraft persisted in the stratosphere day and night, consistently achieved a dawn altitude of 60,000 feet and its highest altitude of 71,140 feet.

#Airbus #Сomposites

> source

JEC Group: Market insights survey shows positive outlooks for the composites industry

According to JEC Group, the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic that has been affecting the world's economy since last winter has had a tremendous impact on many major industries, including aerospace and automotive, at the heart of the composites industry. Although the outlooks seem uncertain for the latter, the composites industry has remained resilient and shows strong adaptability during this crisis.

Thus, JEC Group mandated Explori, an audience listening platform, to perform a survey among 1,500 international respondents in May and October 2020 to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on their company. Many industrials are looking forward to the future with much optimism. Here are some of the key findings of the survey.

On a global scale, the composites industry has resisted the impact of COVID-19:
• 64 % of companies are operating at 76 – 99 % of their capacity showing a positive sign of recovery post-COVID-19.
• Half of the respondents have shown concerns over business opportunities. The crisis has pushed them to reinvent themselves shortly to support production capacities and avoid downturns.
• Only 25 % express concerns regarding innovation and R&D. Their main objective is to turn to more investment in R&D to innovate in the future.
•
The survey revealed that 50 % of the respondents changed materials suppliers to cope with supply chain issues. Many have changed their foreign providers to turn to local ones to avoid supply chain delays, and 70 % plan to remain on the same path in the future. Also, 25 % of the companies have switched their production to the manufacture of healthcare products in May, 30 % of them will continue in the long run showing a growing interest in this sector.

Future perspectives and problematics:
• One out of two companies are optimistic about the development of the situation within the next 18 months; this is consistent across regions, companies' types, and sizes
• 50 % of respondents have considered entering a new activity sector – the areas of sustainability and renewable energies are the main ones.
• Renewable energy, Sports and health sector, Marine, Building, Railway, and Defense are considered to be in the top 5 new sectors to enter in the future.
• 50 % consider that innovation is critical to enter new markets and new manufacturing processes. Innovation sources via universities and start-ups will remain stable whatever the region.
• The top 3 innovation drivers are reducing cost, competition concerns, and new customers' needs.
• For composite part manufacturers, the top 3 innovation drivers would be production cost reduction, competition, and also applying for scientific advances.

#MarketInsightsSurvey #CompositesIndustry #JECGroup

> source

Jushi 250,000-ton glass fiber facility begins operation

Base production lines surpass production expectations, setting a new benchmark for intelligent manufacturing in the glass fiber industry.

Twenty months after the start of the construction work in March 2019, the official opening of fiberglass manufacturer China Jushi Co. Ltd.’s (Hangzhou, China) 250,000-ton glass fiber manufacturing facility was held in the Qingbaijiang District, Chengdu, Sichuan province on Nov. 18.

China Jushi and China National Building Material Group (CNBM, Beijing, China) executives, as well as leaders of various departments of the district government, customer representatives, supplier representatives, news media and employee representatives attended the ceremony.

In his inaugural speech, Wang Yumeng, deputy general manager of CNBM, the parent company of China Jushi, affirmed that CNBM will continue to spare no effort to support the development of China Jushi. He expressed hope that local governments at all levels, especially the Chengdu Municipal Party Committee and the Qingbaijiang District, can continue to support the development of both groups, and jointly carry forward the business of new glass fiber materials.

#Jushi #fiberglass #CNBM

> source

Scott Bader products used in construction of new superyacht

Scott Bader has announced that its advanced composite and adhesive materials were used in the manufacture of the Majesty 122, Gulf Craft’s new 37m superyacht launched in November 2020.

The Majesty 122 is a stunning example of Gulf Craft’s build quality and Scott Bader’s high-performance materials. It was built using Crystic vinylester resins, Crystic gelcoats, Crestabond and Crestomer structural adhesives, Crestafix bonding pastes and Crestamould matched tooling systems.

Scott Bader and Gulf Craft have been working in partnership since 2007 to manufacture their world class range of superyachts.

Abeer Al Shaali, acting CEO of Gulf Craft, said: “We are delighted to have been working with Scott Bader for nearly 15 years. Their high-performance materials are the perfect solution for our manufacturing needs. The team at Scott Bader Middle East provide us with excellent support and technical knowledge.”

‘Happy Days’ is the first Majesty yacht from the Superyacht Series to feature a fully enclosed luxurious sky-lounge. The timeless exterior profile flows seamlessly with the interior design creating harmonious views throughout.

#ScottBader #VinylesterResins #gelcoats #adhesives

> source