This gives us the ability to develop better, more fatigue-resistant composites, we can see when the fibre starts to break. We now have a way to quantify the damage.

NIST chemist Jeff Gilman

Since the 1960s, scientists have been experimenting with ways to make FRPs lighter and stronger. This has often meant testing the bond between fibre and resin. As reported in a previous publication, the NIST team added small molecules that fluoresce after the impact of mechanical force. These molecules, called “mechanophores,” change colour or light up, helping identify tiny nanometer-sized openings or cracks between the fibre and resin.

The NIST team has taken this technology to the next level by incorporating the mechanophore throughout the composite resin. Although not noticeable to the naked eye, the newest approach allows scientists to use special microscopy imaging techniques to measure FRP damage. The approach incorporates a minute amount (less than 0.1% mass) of a fluorescent dye called rhodamine that causes no appreciable changes in the material’s physical properties. 

If the new mechanophore is embedded in structures made of FRP, field testing for fatigue could be done inexpensively and on a regular basis. Structures like wind turbines could frequently be scanned easily for interior cracks, even years after they’ve been erected.

We thought that when we looked at the results, there’d be a halo of light around the crack, showing the fluorescence of the mechanophore, Instead, they found that damage occurs in places that are very remote from the point of fiber fracture.

Jeremiah Woodcock

Initial work with this new tool also revealed a surprise about FRP damage. When a fibre breaks, it sends out a kind of “shock wave” that moves throughout the material, explained Jeremiah Woodcock, the lead author of a new paper about the mechanophore published in Composites Science and Technology. In the past, it was believed that most of the damage was happening at the point of breakage. 

The NIST mechanophore research also found that existing testing was unintentionally damaging the material’s strength. This has, in turn, led designers and engineers to overdesign FRPs. Using the mechanophore could, therefore, bring down energy and manufacturing costs and increase the ways these materials are used in the industry.

The post An Early Warning System for Damage in Composite Materials appeared first on Composites Today.

Oribako is a polyhedron structure made of FRP panels and hinges that can be easily transported, deployed, folded away and stored. FRP with soft resin is used for the hinges to provide elasticity, flexibility and durability as well as a strong seal. The product can be produced in a variety of shapes and sizes, such as small boxes or simple architectural structures.

The FRPs used for the panels and the hinged sections are integrated seamlessly, ensuring airtightness and a smooth surface with no ridges. Depending on its intended use, the composition of materials used for the panels and hinges of the Oribako can be adjusted to incorporate properties such as sound absorption, heat insulation or shock absorption.

A prototype of the product will be showcased at SAMPE Japan this year and will comprise a simple booth in which carbon fibre composite panels are bonded to glass fibre composite hinges. It will have a floor area of about 11 square meters and weigh about 40 kilograms. The booth can easily be erected by two adults without the need for tools or machinery.

The company will continue to develop Oribako and hope to make it commercially available by 2022. The product is expected to be used in a variety of scenarios, such as a temporary indoor space with external solar panels and as a delivery container allowing easy and rapid change of cargos including those require a tight seal.

The post Teijin Creates Foldable Composite Structure appeared first on Composites Today.

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A press is the centrepiece of the ZF Composites Tech Centre that works under the responsibility of Corporate Research and Development in Friedrichshafen. It can be used to produce components from duroplastic materials according to the RTM process (Resin Transfer Moulding). In Schweinfurt, ZF will also be able to produce minor quantities of complex FRP parts that are suitable for prototypes. Since the beginning of 2012, ZF has invested a total of EUR 3.1 million in machines and buildings for the ZF Composites Tech Centre.

Michael Hankel, member of the ZF Board of Management responsible for the Car Powertrain Technology and Car Chassis Technology divisions as well as Corporate Production said;

In the past few years, we have established vast basic knowledge and gained experience in lightweight design and we have increasingly been using fibre-reinforced plastics for this purpose, with the ZF Composites Tech Centre, we are now focusing specifically on the process technologies for volume production using these materials and we want to make this knowledge available throughout the Group.

The centre will initially be run by four engineers. Apart from a press with a high-pressure injection unit for various resin hardener systems, there will also be systems for further processing, including a robot and an infrared and tempering furnace.

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Norco have been supplying Glass Reinforced plastic components and tooling services for over 27 years, up until the opening of the new composites centre this diversification of projects and technologies had been spread across the 4 separate work centres totalling 85,000sqft.

The company said it was becoming harder to manage projects from a skills point of view but also from a quality point of view. Anyone with a background in composite manufacturing will know that laminating decorative carbon prepreg in the immediate vicinity of another operator sanding or hand laminating is not ideal but often inevitable when short of space.

With a growing list of customers in Aerospace, Simulation, Renewable & Communication markets, it became clear a new bespoke facility was required to support this growth whilst at the same time not turning our back on the traditional marine Market that Norco has grown up from to the 130 employees it employs today.

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The new 16,000sqft manufacturing facility was constructed in the 4th qtr of 2012 to amalgamate the existing and growing range of advanced composite projects, the new facility features two separate work areas with twin gantry 16 ton overhead cranes at 12m high.

These were incorporated into the building design to ensure the company has the capability of manufacturing and moving very large structures and the safe handling of the tooling. This now allows Norco to undertake and cater for the growing market demand for larger composite structures.

The larger of the two bays house the two large composite curing ovens the biggest being a modular oven 6m x 6m x 3m with a smaller high temperature oven 6m x 3m x 2m capable of 200°C which is able to fulfil the high service temperature systems used in the oil & gas projects.

Composites Project manager – Henry Nicholson-Cole stated

One of the fundamental factors to successful out-of-autoclave cured prepreg components is having full control of the cure parameters, so investment in very high quality ovens pays dividends in reliability and repeatability.

Both ovens are able to maintain +/-3°C within their operating envelope and run on their own independent programmable computers offering continuous real-time monitoring of part temperatures.

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The seaside town of Dawlish, on the south coast of Devon, hosted a landmark event in the history of UK railway infrastructure during the weekend of 13 and 14 October 2012. The coastal railway line, part of Network Rail’s mainline network is noted for its particularly scenic qualities and for being one of the most exposed in the country, constantly battling the effects of coastal erosion and salt spray induced corrosion.

The station was originally designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1830 and is grade II listed. Unfortunately the station’s 17.5 metre long covered steel footbridge, reconstructed in 1937, had deteriorated beyond repair and any similar form of replacement would probably meet the same fate in due course.

Its replacement is a lightweight structure weighing only five tonnes, approximately one-third that of the current bridge. Designed by Tony Gee and Partners and subconsultant Optima Projects, it has been constructed using modern advanced materials technology and is the first Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composite bridge installed at a mainline station in the UK and notably the first Grade II listed FRP bridge. The structure aesthetically replicates the character of the original steel structure, but provides a much lighter and more durable solution and is expected to result in considerable through-life cost savings due to reduced maintenance expenditure.

The structure was installed by main contractor BAM Nuttall and fabricated by Pipex Structural Composites. It mainly utilises standard FRP structural profiles, produced by a process known as pultrusion, combined with parapet sandwich panels moulded by film infusion. The stairs at each end of the bridge are also moulded FRP units.

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Gurit worked closely with the tower top designers, SL-Rasch (Stuttgart, Germany), to carry out the structural engineering of the composite tower top cladding, clock hands, and the 23m diameter crescent, a self-supportive FRP composite structure which is located at the top of the building.  Gurit supplied a range of advanced composite materials, to Premier Composites Technologies (Dubai, UAE), the company that carried out fabrication and installation of the cladding, clock face, clock hands and crescent.  This included a new fire retardant wet laminating system from Gurit which was developed for lamination of the facade. 

Lamination was carried out on direct CNC cut moulds fabricated using Gurit’s T-Paste tooling paste on a polystyrene blank block.  The easy machining, low cure shrinkage and high level of detail achievable with T-Paste enabled rapid production of accurate direct moulds for the part production.

The clock hands presented a particular challenge due to their long slender geometry and the potential for high wind loading.  The clock hands were manufactured using a carbon fibre prepreg material and T-Foam structural core. Gurit originally developed the prepreg and the T-Foam for use in modern large wind turbine blades.  The excellent stiffness to weight ratio of the carbon prepreg combined with the mechanical properties, toughness and low resin uptake of structural core enabled the realisation of a lightweight, stiff clock hand.

Dr Mark Hobbs, Senior Engineer, Engineered Structures at Gurit comments,

This has been a fascinating project to work on.  It has presented numerous challenges, from the sheer scale and complexity of the project, to the integration of finishes and lighting into the cladding panels.  It has been a pleasure to work as part of the talented multinational design and production team to find ways to realise the vision of the client and architect using advanced FRP composite materials.

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In addition to supplying 75,000 pieces of fibreglass composite manhole covers per year, Everlast would facilitate manufacturing another 25,000 pieces in Egypt to meet the country’s annual requirement of 100,000 pieces. For this, the company plans to set up a new facility, with a manufacturing capacity of 10 lakh tonnes of fibreglass composite materials in Gujarat, at an investment of Rs 10 crore. The plant is expected to come on stream in three years. The company plans to enter the capital market to raise funds for further growth.

Currently, its plant in Thane has a manufacturing capacity of 50,000 tonnes. The company supplies FRP products to the Bombay Municipal Corporation, Mahanagar Telephone Ltd, City and Industrial Development Corporation, the Bombay Port Trust the and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, among others. The overall size of the industry in India currently stands at Rs 2,000 crore.

FRP and glass reinforced plastic (GRP) composite products such as manhole covers and frames, moulded and pultruded gratings and profiles, fancing, cabins etc are gaining momentum for use in daily life. Despite FRP being non-corrosive, the product directly work as a substitute of cast iron currently used for all these applications.

Talking about the life span of FRP products, Amrit Sanghai, technical director of Everlast said:

Technically speaking the durability of FRP material is 15 years as compared to 30 years of cast iron. But, product made of cast iron does not last to their full life span due to theft and recyclability. Being FRP 30 per cent cheaper, light weight, consumers prefer to replace cast iron with reinforced plastics.

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