Welcome to the articles that were included in the Summer 2010 Newsletter. To subscribe please send an email to info@compositesuk.co.uk with Subscribe Composites UK in the subject line.

 

Hopefully you'll have noticed something a little different about our website. With a complete redesign making it more user friendly and holding twice as much information as its predecessor the new design completes the associations rebranding exercise.

 

It includes introductory knowledge of composite materials, online resource tools, industry calendar, an extensive member’s only area and much more.

 

A brand new searchable directory of its members is the main feature of the new site, allowing visitors to find the company they need to help solve their challenges directly. Visitors will be able to search via company name, type, materials, applications and production methods.

 

The website will serve as a vital communication tool not just between Composites UK and its members, but will reinforce the association’s position as a rich source of information for the whole of the composites industry.

 

For more information please contact us at info@compositesuk.co.uk.

 

Composites UK are pleased to announce that they will be the industry partner for an exciting new Composites Roadshow in 2011.

 

Details of the roadshow are given in the attached presentation. This also shows some photos from previous roadshows to give an indication of what the vehicle is like.

 

This will be a 2 week tour across the UK visiting 10 key client organisations. Suggestions for some stops are shown in the presentation, but these are not confirmed and are subject to input from Composites UK members for suitable alternatives if appropriate.

 

At each stop the exhibition will be open from 09:30am until 2pm.

 

24 individual companies can take part in the Roadshow, each having their own booth on the vehicle. The cost per company for the 2 weeks is £5000. For this, each exhibitor will receive:

 

- Your Stand with full power, lighting and cupboard storage
- FREE Production of the Display Panel for your stand.
- The opportunity to have 2 representatives on board at each stop.
- FREE Database of all who visit the show and all who express interest in your product offering.
- FREE “Management” of your stand should you not be able to have representation at some of the sites. 

 

Dream Marketing will be organising the roadshow and has considerable experience with this kind of event, having done several very successful industry-specific ones in the past (e.g. the Defence and Aerospace Manufacturing Technology Roadshow)

 

http://www.dream-marketing.co.uk

 

The UK’s first dedicated composites design and manufacturing exhibition is to unify the value chain for two days of knowledge transfer, intensive networking, partnership, and business development.

Independent market research has shown that the UK composites industry is worth around £2 billion per annum, and this figure is growing steadily year-on-year. With material and process innovation continuing to gather momentum there was an increasing need within the industry for an event to bring together every link in the value supply chain.

That event now exists, the Composites Engineering Show, and it will be held at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, on the 29th and 30th September 2010. Conceived and developed with the specific aim of bringing together participants from the UK’s rapidly developing and expanding composites design and production engineering community, the show will feature product and process applications from a wide spectrum of industry sectors, including aerospace, motorsport, transportation, marine, medical, construction, oil & gas, telecoms and consumer products.

 

As Chris Little, chairman of Composites UK, states so succinctly: “We are really excited about  the introduction of the UK’s first dedicated trade show serving the needs of the UK composites design and manufacturing sector, and we are looking forward to meeting UK multi-industry supply chain and customer groups nationwide.”

Many companies are using the new show as a strategic event to showcase strengths as well as highlight transferable technologies. For example, renowned motorsports specialist Lola Composites has recently embarked on a partnership with the innovative Quiet Revolution (QR), a company that designs elegant vertical axis wind turbines.

Another key supplier of the motorsport sector, epm: technology already serves four F1 teams, a feat made possible by aligning its production processes to meet the clients’ needs for high precision engineered components manufactured to meet extremely tight deadlines.

As a leading UK composites manufacturer epm: technology will ask visitors their views on how composites firms should best serve the aerospace industry when it exhibits at the show.

Mr Mulholland says: “To coin a phrase, we are not coming to the show asking what the aerospace industry can do for us, but what we can do for the industry.

 
“The full potential of how composite materials can shape aerospace remains untapped, because so many problems of producing composite components on a large enough scale are unresolved.

“We don’t currently have the answers, but we do have a can-do attitude that involves altering our processes to meet our customers’ needs. We are bringing examples of our high precision components to the show, but our main concern is engaging with industry leaders to find out what they are looking for from companies like ours.”

A prime example of knowledge transfer, which will be highlighted by many companies at the show, concerns the offshore industry, which is starting to tap into motorsports’ expertise in the use of advanced structural materials. Show exhibitor, Prodrive, one of the world’s most successful motorsport specialists, is providing the offshore industry with the benefits offered by replacing metals with carbon composite materials originally developed for racecar and aerospace applications.

The most recent Prodrive project required the construction of a number of large crude-oil filters for use on an offshore platform, replacing steel with composites. The company is now exploring other potential offshore applications to complement its existing expertise in subsystem design and high-precision machining.

“Composites are still unfamiliar materials in many industries, but we’ve found that their blend of strength and light weight, combined with our design and manufacturing expertise, provides some very attractive solutions to the many challenges of operating offshore,” explains Ian Handscombe, composites manager for Prodrive. “We’re supporting customers throughout the entire process of component design, material specification, manufacture and through to successful installation.”

As well as strategic initiatives and knowledge transfers the show also provides visitors with the chance to see the latest process developments, such as a new composite epoxy resin system from John Burn. Called Biresin CR84, it is aimed at filament winding manufactured by Sika Tooling & Composites in Germany.

The new resin system is particularly suited to the filament winding process due to its viscosity characteristics, good wetting out properties and a very long pot life. All this combines with a low cure temperature of 70°C to give a glass transition temperature ≥ 80°C. Furthermore, Biresin CR84 is also versatile enough to also be used in the hand lay-up process and is non-toxic.

Exhibits and technical presentations at the Composites Engineering Show will cover every type of composite, including fibre reinforced polymers, sandwich and cored structures, fibre metal laminates, metal matrix, ceramic matrix and carbon composites. The event showcases materials manufacturers and suppliers; design, analysis and simulation technologies; process providers and production technologies, including machining and tooling; suppliers of composite parts, components and structures; and composites maintenance engineering.

Composites Engineering is organised by Leading Edge Events & Media, and is co-located with the Aero Engineering 2010 Exhibition within an integrated show space that promotes knowledge transfer.

As well as a free fast-track entry badge there are four compelling reasons to pre-register for the co-located Aero Engineering and Composites Engineering shows this September, not including the fact that unregistered visitors will be charged £10 on the day.

First, over 150 key suppliers of parts, components, structures, electronics and systems, engineering services and supporting technology groups will be exhibiting their latest products and services. Secondly, the two-day Open Technology Forum held on the show floor offers ‘free to attend’ technical sessions from leading industry media, technical bodies and technology providers. While the two-day Supply Chain Business Briefings, hosted by Aerospace & Defence KTN and UK Trade & Industry (UKTI), provides the third reason to register. Open to paid delegates, this is a high-level UK aerospace engineering industry programme providing fresh business intelligence that will allow aerospace engineering businesses to best position their forward technical, skills and programme activity strategies – it includes presentations from influential industry leaders such as BAE Systems, Airbus, GKN, Goodrich, Rolls-Royce, UKTI, National Composites Centre, and others. Finally, the B2B meetings held over both days provide an Integrated Appointment Programme. Set to go live two weeks prior to the show, this unique online meetings portal will facilitate hundreds of on-site meetings up and down the supply chain. Available to all attendees, exhibitors and delegates it promises to provide a nurturing environment where business activities can thrive.

 

http://www.compositesexhibition.com

 

 

 

Summary of Event

 

This very successful seminar on 15 July attracted 64 delegates from several of the larger UK boatbuilders, the composite materials supply chain, designers, universities and other research organisations and training colleges. 

 

The aim was to look at the opportunities and future manufacturing needs for boatbuilders using advanced composites through a series of presentations, and a workshop session covering the main challenges facing the industry as it moves towards adopting more advanced materials and processes.  This event was arranged by the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network, Composites UK and the BMF. 

 

Julian Spooner from Princess Yachts and Gary Scott-Jenner of Oyster Marine described the impressive progress made with their resin infusion of large hulls for motor and sailing yachts, respectively at up to 105 and 125 feet overall length.  In both cases there are significant quality, weight and structural benefits as well as a cleaner working environment and reduced emissions of styrene. 

 

Supporting boatbuilders are the process equipment, tooling and materials suppliers that are essential enablers for these more advanced production processes to succeed and be cost effective.  Steve Leonard-Williams from Composite Integration Limited who supply process equipment and tooling for resin infusion processes, and work with several UK boatbuilders including Princess Yachts, explained how their systems have enabled the resin infusion process to be used to produce not only large hulls and superstuctures, but complex structural components such as composite window frames and opening roof assemblies for motor yachts.  Katia Merle of Gurit, now with High Modulus in their group, explained how the design process needed to reflect future manufacturing needs and described the scope and benefits of investing in and using the right design tools.  Concurrent engineering linking design, marketing and production was very much in evidence here and in several other presentations.  Dealing with higher volume production applications Laurent Imbert of Euromere Spraycore presented the benefits of rapid processing and core build up with Spraycore, a low styrene polyester based product particularly useful on deck mouldings and other complex shaped parts where lay up with conventional cores can be more labour intensive. 

 

A new approach to processing carbon fibre composites was described by Lee Harper of the University of Nottingham.  Basically this is a system for carbon fibre composite component manufacture using a robot guided chopper gun with epoxy resin to prepare laminate for consolidation and cure in matched moulds.  The system has been developed with Bentley Motors and Aston Martin for volume manufacture of structural components in cars, and is already used for the production of light, strong and well finished parts.  From the reaction of the audience this has great potential as a cost effective approach to producing carbon fibre components for marine applications.  To ensure that structurally critical mouldings, and particularly carbon fibre composites, are free from voids and other defects Leon Lobo of Laser Optical Engineering described their system using in-plane laser shearography for non destructive testing.  This technology was developed from research at the University of Loughborough, and Laser Optical Engineering is the resulting commercial spin off that counts the RNLI among its clients for inspection of lifeboat structures. 

 

The UK Composites Strategy launched last November by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills is intended to benefit all industrial sectors using composites, including marine, and as part of this strategy an investment has been made in the National Composites Centre at Bristol.  Peter Chivers of the NCC explained how it was being developed, and although focussed on very advanced aerospace composites the Centre was striving to include all sectors and aiming to improve skills, processes and materials that will help improve further the UK’s competitiveness in composites materials applications.  To this end Princess Yachts is one of the companies in the successful consortium that has won the Technology Strategy Board’s Affordable Composites Manufacturing Grand Challenge.  The winning project ‘Inspirational Composite Technologies’ led by the NCC represents a cross sector approach to modern composite materials manufacturing methods.  Several companies and work streams are involved in the project, Princess is working with Bombardier Aerospace on parallel processing opportunities and is receiving financial support for its part in the project. 

 

Building on the interest generated by this event Composites UK will continue to work with the BMF, Materials KTN and the NCC to ensure our members’ interests in the marine sector are represented.

 

 

 

One of the best opportunities you will get in 2010 to promote to UK industry

 

Composites UK is pleased to support a new journal Composites in Manufacturing [CiM] which will launch in September 2010 and will be distributed with the UK copies of Aerospace Manufacturing and the whole circulation of Production Engineering Solutions, a total of 20,000 copies.

 

This new supplement will be dedicated to all industries where composite materials are vital, including Aerospace, Automotive, Marine, Power Generation and Wind Energy – all sectors where the readers are decision makers with budgets to spend on your products & services.

 

Additional copies will be available at Composites Engineering 2010, Autosport International 2011 and Southern Manufacturing 2011 giving you unbeatable shelf life. If you would like to receive a full media kit please contact Phil Sloan (details below).

 

We have negotiated the following special discounted rates in the launch issue for Composites UK members:

 

¼ page colour at £450 + VAT

½ page colour at £800 + VAT

1 page colour at £1,600 + VAT

 

Key positions are still available for your advertisement.

 

The copy deadline is less than 5 weeks away, Friday 20th August. They now have confirmed advertisements from 22 major companies and issue one of CiM will be a minimum of 32 pages, so book now before your competitors do.

 

For more information contact:

Phil Sloan

Business Development Manager

Composites in Manufacturing

0044 1634 830566

0044 (0)7989 552530

phil.sloan@mitpublishing.co.uk

 

Composite manufacturing company successfully approved by the Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) organisation

 

Synergy Composites Ltd, the advanced composite manufacturer based in Altham, Lancashire, has been audited and approved to ISO9001:2008 Quality Management Standards by the Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) organisation.  The Quality Management System is applicable to the development and manufacture of advanced composite components in accordance with the client requirements.

 

Synergy is also setting its sights firmly on AS9100 and TS16949 accreditations, the quality management standard specifically written for the aerospace and automotive industries respectively. During this phase, the company are inviting potential customers to indentify their own unique requirements, thus ensuring efficient customer accreditation thereafter. Synergy is committed to working with their customers to develop an advanced composite supply chain.

 

Synergy Composites Ltd was founded by its current directors in 2007. Each has a wealth of experience within the composite manufacturing industry, specifically within aerospace, having worked on projects such as the F35 Lightning II and Typhoon. They were involved with developing new manufacturing systems and processes through a focused and dedicated cost-effective approach.

 

The company offers a complete advanced composite manufacturing capability, with the ability to deliver all processes such as hand-lay, Prepreg ("pre-impregnated" composite fibres), through to Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) and Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Moulding (VaRTM).

 

Synergy also offers specialist expertise and experience in the manufacture of carbon fibre components and in refining existing composite processes and defining the controlling manufacturing parameters to increase yield and profitability. The company’s team of talented engineers has a long history of successful projects in many industrial sectors.

 

For further information on advanced composite manufacture at Synergy, please contact Andrew Ellel, Sales and Marketing Director, andrew.ellel@synergycomposites.com or 0844 858 0770.

 

www.synergycomposites.com

In its ongoing efforts to become a more environmentally responsible company, Amber Composites today announced that its facilities in the UK have received ISO 14001 certification.  As part of the efforts to achieve this well-recognized certification Amber Composites established an environmental management system to ensure that the Company's activities, products and services have minimal impact on or risk to the environment.  Amber's system monitors the Company's energy efficiency, resource conservation, waste management and chemical control, and includes targets for reducing overall environmental impact.

In addition to this, Amber Composites recently announced two important additions to their product portfolio.  These additions are key milestones for Amber as they further build on their complete portfolio of high-end composite materials.  Multipreg E520 is an Out-Of-Autoclave component prepreg that has proven to be exceptionally easy to use and provides an excellent surface finish.  Multipreg E520 lets designers laminate a variety of components quickly, more efficiently and with no size limitations, while achieving a high quality cosmetic surface finish. 

To improve service and reduce lead times, Amber Composites has increased its unidirectional prepreg manufacturing capabilities with the addition of a dedicated UD manufacturing line.  Amber’s superior resin formulations are now available in a wide range of woven, multi-axial and unidirectional formats, with the response times and high level of technical service that Amber is dedicated to providing for all of its products.  The new unidirectional systems are designed to complement Amber's range of woven systems, and are available in a wide range of fibers and resin systems.

Amber Composites is a leading manufacturer of composite materials for high performance, lightweight structures.  Amber provides materials and technical expertise to a diverse set of industries, including motorsport, automotive, aerospace, communications, marine and wind energy.  Amber Composites is ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified. 

Amber Composites will be exhibiting at the Composites Engineering 2010 show at the NEC in Birmingham and will be located at Booth 207.

www.ambercomposites.com
+44 (0)1773 530899

John Burn has introduced a new composite epoxy resin system, Biresin® CR84, particularly aimed at filament winding manufactured by Sika Tooling & Composites in Germany.

 

The new resin system is particularly suited to the filament winding process due to its viscosity characteristics, good wetting out properties and a very long pot life. All this combined with a low cure temperature. Furthermore, Biresin CR84 is also versatile enough to also be used in the hand lay-up process.

 

Biresin CR84 system not only has good wetting out properties, but is also modified to reduce the dripping from the fibres during winding. This ensures both high quality components and a clean working environment. The cured resin is tough and has good elongation to break. The pot life of Biresin CR84 with hardener Biresin CH84-20 is approx. 10 hours. This allows for working a complete 8 hour shift without changing the resin in the bath. The resin system can be cured at 70°C to give a glass transition temperature ≥ 80°C. Biresin CR84 has also been approved by Germanischer Lloyd and is non-toxic.

 

For more information about this system and the other systems available in the Sika Composites range please contact John Burn on +44 (0) 121 508 4144 and speak to our sales team.
 

Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Sadayuki Sakakibara; hereinafter referred to as “Toray”) today announced that the company has signed a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with German automobile major Daimler AG (headquarters: Stuttgart, Germany; Chairman: Dieter Zetsche; hereinafter referred to as “Daimler”) to develop automobile parts made of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP).

The two companies plan to promote the joint development of diverse CFRP automobile components by utilizing High Cycle Resin Transfer Molding (RTM), an innovative CFRP molding process technology developed by Toray. Under the agreement, Toray, in addition to developing optimal CFRP materials, handles design and molding processes, with Daimler being responsible for developing technologies for joining of the parts. By bringing together respective technologies, the companies plan to develop a molding method with significantly shorter molding cycle. The companies aim for adoption of the newly developed parts in Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz model within next three years.

As the world's largest manufacturer of carbon fiber, Toray has identified expansion of its Carbon Fiber Composite Materials Business in the automotive field as one of its top priorities. In June 2008, the company established the Automotive Center (AMC), a comprehensive development base for automotive applications, and a center for developing technology and applications for CFRP products, the Advanced Composite Center (ACC) in April 2009. These centers serve as the core entities of the A&A (Automotive & Aircraft) Center in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, its comprehensive technology development center for automotive and aircraft applications, and are involved in the development of optimal materials and processes for automotive applications.

Daimler has positioned environment responsiveness as its most important strategy and has been actively promoting development of new environment-friendly technologies. Daimler has set a target of reducing the weight of the body-in-white up to ten percent for all models under its Mercedes-Benz series compared with their existing models, with the aim of improving fuel efficiency and reducing exhaust gas emissions. This net reduction will over compensate the weight increases coming through additional safety and comfort innovations as also green technologies in the power train. In order to achieve this goal, Daimler has been following the policy of allocating the right material in the right place in its development activities, and as part of that initiative it intends to actively expand the use of CFRP parts and the range of vehicle models using such parts.

Currently, reduction of the weight of vehicles for improving fuel efficiency is one of the important issues in the automobile industry, and adoption of carbon fibers is expected to gain momentum in the coming days as a means to realize significantly lighter vehicles. Through this collaboration with Daimler AG, the leading manufacturer of high-end automobiles with, Toray aims to establish mass production technology for CFRP auto parts and further expand its carbon fibers and advanced composites business in the automobile field. Toray is determined to make contributions to the efforts to tackle global environmental issues through expanded applications and wider use of its advanced material “Torayca” carbon fiber in the environmental and new energy fields.

 

alan.riley@toray-intl.co.uk 
www.toray.com
 

 

GRPMS is delighted to announce a supply agreement with Chomarat , leader in innovative and special reinforcements.
 
Under the agreement, GRPMS will become Chomarat’s  product range distributor, in both the UK & Eire. GRPMS has unrivalled experience in the composite distribution market through its experienced sales team and network of distribution centres.
 
The addition of Chomarat's global expertise and its wide range of products, including special solutions for closed mold processes such as Roviflow®or Rovicore®, will further strengthen GRPMS portfolio of composite products.

 

This new cooperation will reinforce GRPMS strategy of delivering to its customers top quality products from the strongest supplier portfolio in the composites distribution market.

claire.simmonds@grpms.com
www.grpms.com

Andrew Dugmore has been appointed Sales Director in charge of worldwide sales.  Andrew has a strong background with over 20 years of composite experience in both sales and production.  He brings with him experience of being an Amber customer for many years.

 

 

 

 

 

Amber has also appointed Adrian Hughes as Market Sector Manager for Motorsport and Automotive.  Adrian has extensive product and business development experience from his years at Cytec and Jaguar Land Rover, and will be driving the introduction of Amber's new material developments into the motorsport and automotive markets.
 

www.ambercomposites.com
+44 (0)1773 530899

 

 

 

This deal provides Synergy with the right to manufacture Trelleborg AEM products for a long term period.

 

Synergy Composites have been working in partnership with Trelleborg for the last 12 months, developing new techniques and processes to assist various products. This rolling 2 year agreement solidifies the working relationship between Synergy Composites and Trelleborg and hopefully paves the way for future agreements.

 

The team at Synergy have extensive advanced composite manufacturing knowledge and expertise gained within the aerospace industry, working on various high profile projects. Synergy is unique in the way that it approaches its method of working, in that we are leaders in turning a vision into reality, using six sigma and other specialised process improvement techniques.

 

Andrew Ellel, Sales and Marketing Director at Synergy says: “This rolling two year joint working agreement underlines our commitment and solidifies our working arrangement with Trelleborg, we hope to build on this initial agreement”.

 

Synergy Composites Ltd was founded by its current directors in 2007. Each has a wealth of experience within the composite manufacturing industry, specifically within aerospace, having worked on projects such as the F35 Lightning II and Typhoon. They were involved with developing new manufacturing systems and processes through a focused and dedicated cost-effective approach.

 

The company offers a complete advanced composite manufacturing capability, with the ability to deliver all processes such as hand-lay, Prepreg ("pre-impregnated" composite fibres), through to Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) and Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Moulding (VaRTM).

 

Synergy also offers specialist expertise and experience in the manufacture of carbon fibre components and in refining existing composite processes and defining the controlling manufacturing parameters to increase yield and profitability. The company’s team of talented engineers has a long history of successful projects in many industrial sectors.

 

For further information on advanced composite manufacture at Synergy, please contact Andrew Ellel, Sales and Marketing Director, andrew.ellel@synergycomposites.com or 0844 858 0770.

 

www.synergycomposites.com

Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President & CEO: Sadayuki Sakakibara; hereinafter referred to as “Toray”) today announced that it signed a long-term basic supply agreement with the aerospace and defence company EADS to supply carbon fiber prepreg for aircraft application primarily for Airbus S.A.S. over 15 years through 2025.

EADS is Europe’s largest aerospace corporate group comprising the globally leading aircraft manufacturer Airbus as well as the helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter, the space provider Astrium and the EADS Defence & Security division. Until now, Toray has been supplying high-quality and high-performance carbon fibers to EADS through prepreg manufacturers which produce and supply carbon fiber prepreg. The agreement this time enables a framework for Toray to directly supply a wider range of products, including its high-performance carbon fiber prepreg to EADS.

The demand for carbon fiber for aircraft application had been stagnant since 2008. However, there are signs of recovery and expansion of the market, as major aircraft manufacturers revise up the number of aircraft production. Airbus has been using carbon fiber composite materials in primary and secondary structural material of A320 Single Aisle Family, A330 / A340, Long Range Family and A380. With the A350 XWB, a new generation Long-Range medium-sized jet airplane, carbon fiber composite materials will be used in a significant scale in wings and fuselage. The production of this new aircraft is expected to dramatically increase the use of carbon fiber composite materials at Airbus.

Toray is currently in the process of qualifying for its intermediate-modulus carbon fiber prepreg and will also make active efforts so that its prepreg will be adopted for existing and new aircraft models that Airbus may develop in the future.

Toray positions aircraft application as the core application of its high-performance carbon fibers and it boasts a roughly 60% market share in carbon fibers for aircraft application. The long-term basic supply agreement signed this time is expected to strengthen Toray’s relationship with EADS, in particular with Airbus, and to enable it to further increase the supply of high quality, high-performance materials for aircraft applications, thus cementing its position as the leading company in the said application.

Under its medium-term management program Project IT-II launched in April 2009, Toray has been promoting a growth strategy to provide solutions to issues related to environment, natural resources and energy, as well as low birthrate and longevity. The Carbon Fiber Composite Materials business is at the heart of this strategy and Toray, as the world leader in this field, shall strive to further strengthen its financial and business position and expand its businesses by actively pursuing enhanced alliances with prominent partners.
 

alan.riley@toray-intl.co.uk 
www.toray.com

 

 

IDAC have annouced the release of their ESAComp software with a ANSYS Post Processing Interface included. To read the full information on this please click here to download the information sheet.