High-Performance Composites is read by qualified composites industry professionals in the fields of continuous carbon fiber and other high-performance composites as well as the associated end-markets of aerospace, military, and automotive.
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SHOW COVERAGE 3 2 | H I G H - P E R F O R M A N C E C O M P O S I T E S tion is in, and merely selling equipment is a strategy long out of date. Suppliers are uniting to offer OEMs complete man- ufacturing systems. Several consortiums introduced or emphasized turnkey man- ufacturing cells. FIDAMC (Madrid, Spain) and MTorres (Navarra, Spain) scored an aerospace "frst," unveiling jointly devel- oped technology that enables the auto- mated layup and in situ consolidation of carbon fber-reinforced polyetheretherk- etone (PEEK). The target? Aircraft prima- ry structures, including fuselage panels with integrated stiffeners. The equip- ment and process has already resulted in up to 40 percent crystallinity in the ma- trix and a degree of consolidation (DOC) suffcient to require no further heat, vac- uum bag or autoclave processing. Pinette Emidecau (Chalon-sur-Saône, France) announced a new multinational company, Global RTM, that will market complete high-pressure resin transfer molding (HP-RTM) production lines into the aerocomposites sector. Pinette's president Jérôme Hubert, who will also head Global RTM, predicted eventual en- try into the automotive market as well. Headquartered in Bellignat, France, Global RTM will operate out of two as- sembly plants, one in Chalon-sur-Saône, the other in Zernien, Germany, and will beneft from the expertise of three France-based shareholders: toolmaker Compose (Bellignat), injection systems specialist Isojet Equipments (Lyon) and process control/monitoring specialist S.I.S.E (Oyonnax). According to Hubert, the turnkey HP- RTM line integrates ply preparation, pre- forming, tool preparation, injection and forming, postcuring and fnishing. The goal is supply systems capable of up to 150,000 parts per year. Similarly, turnkey systems were touted by Dieffenbacher (Eppingen, Germany), Krauss-Maffei AG (Munich, Germany), Fives Cincinnati (Hebron, Ky.), Engel (Schwertberg, Austria) and RocTool (Paris, France) each working in collabo- ration with other suppliers primarily to meet automotive industry demands for the speed, consistency, repeatability and quality required to compete with legacy metals and metal-forming processes. Passenger protection cells: A fourth trend could be the tip of the proverbial auto industry iceberg — without the negative connotation. Taking a page from builders of Formula 1 race cars, whose carbon fber composite safety cells for drivers are well established on the world's racing circuits, automotive composites fabricators seemed to have determined collectively that the best way to alert auto- makers to their molding profciencies was to mint a monocoque carbon fber com- posite passenger protection cell ("tub" for short), either for a real car (high-end sports) or as a capability demonstrator. The HPC staff counted no fewer than 10 tubs on display. Among them was Carbo Tech (Salzburg, Austria), with an impres- sive display of a carbon fber monocoque cell and wheels, the latter in both hybrid carbon fber/aluminum and all-carbon- fber versions. The company mints tubs for the McLaren MP4-12C supercar, the Porsche 918 Spyder and Volkswagen's XL1 (see photo, p. 35) and recently opened its second production facility in Žebrák, Czech Republic, which it says is highly automated and can deliver 50,000 parts per year using epoxy HP-RTM. The global market for carbon wheels is estimated at roughly 1 million units per year. D E F I N I N G H I G H P E R F O R M A N C E M I L L I N G D R I L L I N G R O U T I N G www.sgstool.com 330-686-5700 Manufactured in the USA SGS has designed specic cutting tool technologies that combine substrate, geometry, edge preparation and coating to withstand the complex conditions of Composite applications requiring minimal ber breakout and delamination. Greater Effciency 0514HPC JEC EuropeReview-OK.indd 32 4/22/2014 3:04:23 PM