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M A Y 2 0 1 4 | 3 3 S I D E S T O R Y SAMPE Europe 2014 Review SAMPE Europe's 35 th International Conference (SEICO 14) was also its last. Beginning in 2015, SAMPE Europe will henceforth organize one large annual conference, combining its SEICO and SETEC events into a multitrack multidis- ciplinary conference and exhibition. The SAMPE France chapter will host the frst one, in Amiens, France, under an as yet undetermined new name, and it will travel to major European industrial centers. In the spring of 2015, SAMPE Europe will put in place, alongside the JEC Europe show, a one or one-and- a-half day Executive Summit. It will feature presenters by invitation only, who will address key issues that affect the composites and advanced materials community in Europe, on the day prior to the JEC Europe show. Aerospace: Coming out of the autoclave SEICO 14's aerospace keynoter, Gary G. Bond, from The Boeing Co.'s operations in St. Louis, Mo., spoke engagingly about "Taking the Pressure Off: Out-of-Autoclave Composite Prepreg, Past and Future." He began by telling attendees that when Boeing appointed him its new manager of disruptive technology seven years ago, the goal without doubt was to get out of the autoclave (OOA), but the question was which method of OOA? Beyond the obvious savings in capital equipment and energy consump- tion, OOA would remove limits on part size. Boeing preferred familiar thermoset prepreg for its consistency and its potential for automation, also a goal. "This was not Boeing's frst time at the rodeo," Bond quipped, noting that Boeing, preferring not to hurry into new development, began with a tooling prepreg, us- ing it to save time and money getting prototypes in the air, despite porosity and other problems. Although engineers hoped a second-generation OOA prepreg, LTM 45, could be used for fnished parts, its 10-day out-life was too tight. A third-generation toughened product, CYCOM 5320-1, however, can produce less than one percent void content, has a 30-day out-time and is performance- and weight-competitive with autoclaved prepreg. Bond credited the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for creating a disruptive-technology funding program and partnering with Boeing "in a very real way," adding that DARPA, the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio) and Boeing "worked very closely" and determined that the results should be, as much as possible, in the public domain. He told attendees, "We tried to make it as much yours as ours." Bond said the goal was to "go ugly early" and try diffcult confgurations to discover the material/process "Achilles' heels and address them." Successes culminated in a recent demonstration of the material in oven-cured 68-ft wingskins for the Phantom Eye UAV. What's ahead? Bond says the goals include larger and thicker structures, more robust processing and tougher resins that will allow ATL/AFP machines to operate at speed (but available at lower cost). Finally, 30-day out-time is good, he agreed, but it won't be enough for the large structures to come. During a Q&A; period, Bond commented in answer to a fnal question about goals that Boeing wants a "robust resin system that is much more forgiving." So much so that, "the worst tech, on his worst day, could make an accept- able part." Automotive: A thermoplastic composite future? During SEICO 14's second keynote, titled "Next Challenge in CFRTP for Mass Production Automo- bile Application," the University of Tokyo's Dr. Jun Takahashi observed that Japan makes 30 percent of the world's automobiles and 50 percent of its carbon fber. For that reason, a Japanese National Project is addressing carbon fber availability and price and the speed of automotive carbon fber part production. Takahashi says the project has 34 partners, and will beneft from government funding — roughly €15 million ($20.7 million) per year. The hope is to reduce car weight by 30 percent. The program timeline assumes that 2020 is the starting point for mass production of carbon fber auto parts, and that, by 2030, fber demand for auto production alone will reach 1 million metric tonnes (2.2 billion lb). Notably, the program's matrix of choice is not a thermoset, but a thermo- plastic — specifcally, a maleic acid-modifed polypropylene (PP). Takahashi argued that carbon fber/PP doesn't shatter and break on the tensile side like carbon/epoxy, that the resulting parts can be welded rather than adhesively joined (welding is more familiar to auto OEMs), and that thermoplastics better accommodate nut inserts for component assembly. That said, Takahashi noted, "CFRTP is not yet a mature technology." Program outcomes will depend on reductions in the cost of fber production, suffcient supply to meet increased demand, design for manufacturing, and a major reduction in the cycle time for CFRP auto parts. Although part cost is directly related to mold cycle time, Takahashi emphasized that recycled carbon fber holds the most promise for controlling part cost and that the use of recycled fber will reduce the material cost of CFRP parts to a level competitive, in 2020, with aluminum. He noted that research indicates no depreciation of f- ber properties during recycling and there is also no appreciable drop in fnished part performance between those reinforced with continuous virgin fber and those made with long but discontinuous recycled fber. He added that recycled fbers of any length will fnd a place in auto production. Gary G. Bond Dr. Jun Takahashi In the air and on the ground At its annual JEC Europe press confer- ence, Hexcel's VP/GM Thierry Merlot re- ported on use of Hexcel fber and resin in CFM International's LEAP 1A (Airbus A320neo), 1B (Boeing 737 MAX) and 1C (COMAC C919) engines, which feature carbon fber blades and containment cases using HexTow IM7. Hexcel, he not- ed, "is preparing and ramping up for the challenge" of the LEAP engine program, which by 2020 is expected to consume 1,800 shipsets per year. Hexcel presi- dent Nick Stanage anticipates revenues of $2.5 billion by 2017, pointing to Boe- ing/Airbus backlogs totaling 10,000 units as evidence of good long-term demand for its fber and prepreg. Hexcel offcials said that given "guaranteed" long-term demand in aerospace and automotive, Hexcel will spend "several hundred mil- lion dollars" on expansion in the next several years. On display at the Hexcel stand was an aircraft fuselage demonstrator fabricated with the company's HiTape dry fber rein- forcements. Hexcel worked with Aerolia SAS (Saint-Nazaire, France) and Coriolis Composites (Quéven, France) to produce the self-stiffened skin, designed by 0514HPC JEC EuropeReview-OK.indd 33 4/22/2014 3:04:54 PM