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Three-time CW Top Shops honoree (Florina, Greece) was founded by electrical engineer Vasilis Tiriakidis. He began his career servicing power plants near Florina, Greece, and in the early 2000s saw an opportunity when one of the power companies began a construction project to replace metal piping systems with noncorrosive composite materials.

At the beginning of this project, most of the parts and materials were being sourced from a company in Italy. Tiriakidis decided to develop a locally available option, and ultimately began B&T Composites in 2006 to produce filament-wound glass fiber composite industrial components, including pipes. Among those on staff at B&T Composites are multiple members of the Tiriakidis family, including production manager Kosmas Tiriakidis, Vasilis’ son who joined the company in 2012. “It’s purely an engineering family,” Kosmas Tiriakidis says. His siblings, R&D engineer Thomais Tiriakidou and manufacturing engineer Nikos Tiriakidis, also contribute to B&T’s operations.

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After building a small facility and first filament winding line, the company began producing parts in 2008, though the timeframe coincided with the global 2007-2008 financial crisis and subsequent debt crisis in Greece. As a result, Tiriakidis explains, “The original project of replacing metallic parts in the power plants to composites was first postponed, and then canceled. So, we needed to find new markets.”

As a result, the company began to broaden its materials portfolio, including the addition of carbon fiber, enabling it to expand into higher performance products for automotive, industrial, marine and wind energy applications, ranging from industrial printer rollers to ship masts.

In the end, Tiriakidis says that the financial crisis “was good for us in the sense that it forced us to explore new markets and different projects with more added value.”

Over time, the company has expanded to a 53,000-square-foot facility with 45 employees. Operations now include three filament winding lines — with capabilities of producing parts from various dry fibers and a variety of thermoset resins and hybrid metal-composite components. The company also offers additional services such as painting and coating, and in-house metal machining.

Tiriakidis explains that the company has continued to adapt and explore new markets and applications, partially out of need. “Right when things started to finally look up for the country’s financial crisis, that was when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, followed by the war in Ukraine, and we needed to continue to diversify,” he says.

Photonic sensor systems

One innovation B&T Composites has invested in is the integration of photonic sensor technology into filament-wound components. This interest, Tiriakidis explains, stemmed from customers requesting structural health monitoring (SHM) solutions for better understanding the status and structural integrity of parts over time.

B&T Composites explored a variety of sensor technologies from several suppliers, and decided that the most mature technology readily available at the time were Fiber-Bragg Grating (FBG) fiber-optic sensors. Generally speaking, these involve fiber optic sensing points installed strategically within the part itself. The points reflect light back to an external interrogator, simultaneously transmitting data such as temperature, strain and pressure from each point.

B&T Composites now offers both glass and carbon fiber composite filament-wound parts, and is looking to expand to new markets and processes in future.

B&T Composites started by testing process monitoring of its filament winding systems. “Our first project was in about 2018, and is now published. It was to integrate the fiber optic sensors into the composite just before the cure process to monitor the resin cure process and ensure it was successful. The goal was to reduce testing that the parts needed to go through after cure, and to potentially see where parts of the cure cycle could be optimized as well,” Tiriakidis says.  

After seeing success in this initial project, the company next turned to SHM, investigating how to integrate sensors into end use parts so that customers can monitor various parameters over time. “We wanted to build smart printer rollers, or smart masts or crane arms, for example, but we quickly realized that we needed an easy-to-use and affordable interface to present the data to customers in a way that they could use,” Tiriakidis says. He explains that most sensor systems they explored at that time were complex, aimed at the highest-performance, highest-value aerospace parts and were too expensive for most end market applications.

As an alternative, the company developed its own interrogator system for use with FBG sensors, and in 2022 created a separate startup company called , which is co-located with B&T Composites, to develop and market this technology.

In addition to composites manufacturing, B&T Composites offers additional capabilities like machining (top) and painting (bottom).

“We realized we could develop our own in-house, patented read-out units and software that are simpler, and geared toward the range and types of data needed for non-aerospace industrial parts,” Tiriakidis explains. Componous’ customizable systems have also been tested for use with products beyond composite parts, such as SHM of large battery systems and infrastructure components.

Componous was featured in the Startup Booster program at the international composites trade show JEC World 2024. Tiriakidis says the next step in 2025 is for the company to start manufacturing its own FBG sensors alongside its interrogators and software, leveraging designs the team has been working on for several years.

He sees potential for this technology in a growing number of applications, including smart infrastructure for future smart cities. “Photonics systems can save users a lot of time, energy consumption and unnecessary inspection and replacement of parts that do not have any issues,” Tiriakidis says. “SHM boosts productivity, lowers maintenance costs and can make machines more energy efficient, which is increasingly important.”

Expanding into aerospace parts and hydrogen storage

The company continues to expand and advance its capabilities. In 2025, B&T Composites plans to acquire an automated fiber placement (AFP) machine, aiming for high-performance applications in aerospace, defense and other markets. “We have done some projects for aerospace customers and as part of R&D projects. But with AFP, we’ll be able to produce parts with more complex geometries and surfaces than is possible with filament winding, and we’ll be able to work more and more with thermoplastics,” Tiriakidis says.

The company continues to work on a variety of aerospace projects and R&D projects, in close collaboration with Greek technical universities as well as organizations like the Naval Group (Paris), a French shipbuilder.

In recent years, the company has also been involved in the development of hydrogen storage solutions. As part of a European Commission IPCEI project in this field, B&T Composites filament wound liquid hydrogen storage tanks that include photonic sensors for SHM.

Tiriakidis explains that while further funding is needed to fully commercialize these solutions, the company continues its ongoing R&D efforts to drive advancements in hydrogen storage.

Commitment to excellence and future growth

Alongside its expansion into new and high-tech markets and technologies, B&T Composites also remains a family-owned business dedicated to manufacturing high-quality, filament-wound glass and carbon fiber composite components.

Tiriakidis emphasizes, “We are continuously striving to expand our business while maintaining our commitment to excellence. SHM enhances productivity, reduces maintenance costs and improves energy efficiency — key factors for the industries we serve. We welcome partnerships and investment opportunities as we move forward.”