Automotive
DuraStor/HOST participants
In 2010, a multi-partner, multi-year research program called Low Cost, Durable Thermoplastic Hydrogen Storage Tanks, or DuraStor, was formed to address these problems by investigating a drop-in replacement for Type IV tanks. A UK-only program called Hydrogen – Optimisation of Storage and Transfer (HOST) picked up where DuraStor left off in mid-2014. These were the participants.
Read More
Thermoplastic composite pressure vessels for FCVs
U.K. consortiums address durability, weight, cost of high-pressure tanks for hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles.
Read More
Modeling and simulation: Is ICME the next composites breakthrough?
ÂÌñÏ×ÆÞ columnist and composites industry consultant Dale Brosius encourages empirical learners (read "hands-on, trial-and-error old-timers") like himself to buy in and start using today's software-based design and simulation tools, which, he says, have the "potential to truly transform the composite industry."
Read More
Part design criteria (2015)
Designers of composite parts can choose from a huge variety of fiber reinforcements and resin systems. That makes knowledge of how those materials work together a critically important aspect of part development. Here's a short description of what that knowledge entails.
Read More
The markets: Automotive (2015)
Composites — in particular, those reinforced with carbon fiber — continue to make headway into the automotive world, but suppliers of competing steel and aluminum are fighting back.
Read MoreU. of Tennessee consortium awarded National Composites Manufacturing Institute contract
The long-awaited $70 million commitment from the US Department of Energy goes to a consortium led by the University of Tennessee's Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI), which includes 122 partners who have promised an additional $259 million.
Read MoreRegenerative braking system for railcars relies on composites
A new flywheel-based regenerative braking system, the Digital Displacement hydraulic pump-motor transmission system from Artemis Intelligent Power, has demonstrated that it can reduce the carbon footprint of trains.
Read More
Sub-8-minute cycle times on carbon/epoxy prepreg
Globe’s Generation 2 RapidClave system passes another out-of-autoclave milestone.
Read More
The vexing economics of carbon fiber manufacturing
Hexcel's VP and GM Americas, Mike Canario, reviews tough economics the govern carbon fiber manufacturing today, and how they might affect future supply.
Read More
Benteler SGL to supply composite leaf springs for new Volvo XC90
The rear axle of the new Volvo XC90 crossover SUV will use a composite leaf spring molded by Austria-based Benteler SGL using Henkel's Loctite MAX 2 polyurethane resin in RTM.
Read More