Articles

Aircraft interior bins benefit from fast-heat, fast-cool tool

Airbus Industrie (Toulouse, France) wanted to cut cycle time off the production of interior storage bin doors for its A320 and A380 commercial airplanes and identified part cooling in the mold as the most likely source of potential time savings. The doors, about 1m long, are fabricated of a glass fiber prepregged with

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Aligned discontinuous fibers come of age

Discontinuous but aligned carbon fibers are proving formable and formidable in high-performance, compound-curvature applications.

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Startup struggles

A week before Adam Aircraft made the somewhat surprising announcement that it had run out of cash and couldn’t find anyone to lend it money, I found myself on the phone with one of the company’s composites design engineers. We were discussing trends in composites design for aerospace, aerospace design challenges, and

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Formulating challenge: Creating better epoxies for vacuum-infused aerospace parts

More attention is being focused on fabricating processes for aircraft structures that can save time and money and improve efficiency while yielding high-quality parts. Historically, nearly all aircraft designers have assumed autoclave cure as the norm, despite the well-documented cost and time advantages of

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Engineering Insights: Composites Lessen Load in Fuel-Cell Demonstrator

CFRP decklid helps offset fuel-cell system weight to meet vehicle weight target.

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Additives Add Key Innovations

Added in small quantities, these resin system enhancements make larger contributions to composite quality as suppliers enhance their utility.

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NAIA Show Highlights

The 2007 Detroit Auto Show emphasizes “green” themes and high performance.

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Oil drives the Big Three

This is, in some ways, a tough time to be a U.S.-based automaker. Detroit’s traditional Big Three (GM, Chrysler, Ford) are struggling to keep up with Japan’s Big Three (Toyota, Honda, Nissan) and trying hard to develop cars and trucks that are good-looking, reliable and fuel-efficient. On top of this, rising oil

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Dust Collection: Expense or Investment?

Well-engineered dust control systems not only improve shop air quality but also boost productivity, prolong machine life and save energy.

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FRP troughs help remove iron from mine water discharge

For more than 60 years, iron from iron ore deposits has polluted water that flows out of the abandoned Marchand Mine near Lowber, Pa., into Sewickley Creek and the Youghiogheny River. After it was shut down in the early 1940s, the mine began to discharge iron — almost 1 million lb (more than 450,000 kg) annually. In

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Inside Manufacturing: Thermoplastic Composites Lighten Transit Bus

Low-pressure forming processes and low-density, long fiber-reinforced thermoplastic come together to cut weight of aluminum transit bus roof air conditioning door by 40 percent.

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Milestone for CGTech

CGTech has achieved 20 years as a NC program simulation and analysis software provider.

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