Carbon Fibers
Fiber patch preforms help tailor kiteboard performance
Automated means for laying fiber only where needed offers new potential to fine-tune torsional stiffness and flexibility to board and rider styles.
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NASA/Boeing composite launch vehicle fuel tank scores firsts
Subscale 5.5m-diameter cryogenic tank demonstrator with innovative fluted-core skirt is formed via robotic AFP and cured out of the autoclave.
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Advanced composites — An idealized future
A CW columnist, a composites industry consultant and the chief commercialization officer for the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (Knoxville, TN, US), Dale Brosius imagines an ideal future for our industry then challenges us to make it real.
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Recyclable composites must still be reused
Fresh from the IACMI's recent Detroit conclave, CW editor-in-chief Jeff Sloan notes the attendees' admirable commitment to ensure that the carbon fiber composites we build today will be recyclable tomorrow, but asks who will be there, as those products reach end of life, to buy and reuse those reclaimed materials?
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CompoSIDE and Trace: Game-changer for development of composite parts
Structural design challenges (delamination, coupling and shape distortions, resin-driven failures, local stress concentration and the like) are inherent in laminate architecture. The author's contention is that a solution can be found in design simplification afforded by the work of Dr. Stephen Tsai in Trace-based analysis.
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What the Detroit Auto Show does and does not show
There are composites seen and unseen at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and hints about what the next few years might bring.
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Top composites blog articles of 2015
Blog articles about additive manufacturing, 777X composite wings and colored carbon fiber all generated your interest in 2015.
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Wet compression molding
Automated process cuts cycle time and cost for CFRP parts with potential for 65% fiber volume via Dynamic Fluid Compression Molding variant.
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Carbon Fiber: Refiguring the supply/demand equation
CW editor-in-chief Jeff Sloan returns from Carbon Fiber 2015 in Knoxville TN, US, with news that carbon fiber demand will outstrip supply by 2020, prompting expansion in the 2018-2019 timeframe that could include sources in China.
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New Year’s resolutions
CW contributing writer and composites industry consultant Dale Brosius, who presently serves as chief commercialization officer for the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI, Knoxville, TN, US), imagines an automotive world where composites are king, then — more realistically — calls on the industry to resolve to make it capable of worthy service.
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