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SABIC (Pittsfield, Mass., U.S., 6/P12) is highlighting the progress of its Digital Composites Manufacturing line, an automated digital systems for rapid, large-scale laminate manufacturing, via a 360-degree virtual reality experience. Through its Innovations of Scale theme, the company is celebrating an important milestone for this project, which will help industrialize thermoplastic composite laminate fabrication, enabling broader adoption of this material across industries, such as consumer electronics, aerospace, automotive, sporting goods, healthcare, and mass transportation.

The Digital Composites Manufacturing line, a partnership of Airborne and SABIC and powered by Siemens and KUKA technologies, is one of the three finalists in the category Industry & Engineering at the 2019 JEC Innovation Awards.

In conjunction with the Digital Composites Manufacturing line exhibit, SABIC is featuring its ultrastrong, lightweight UDMAX tape, a unidirectional, fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composite used in automated and manual laminating, as well as other manufacturing processes. These include stamping and pressing, thermoforming, and winding with or without injection overmolding. To demonstrate this processing versatility, the company will display diverse UDMAX tape applications from the automotive, consumer products and industrial sectors.

Featured at the SABIC stand is a laminated bulkhead from a commercial vehicle.This part incorporates UDMAXGPP tape within the structure to reduce weight by 30 percent vs. metal while improving processing efficiency and reducing tooling costs.