COMPOSITES EUROPE Blog

CE: COMPOSITES EUROPE Team
CN: Christopher Nüßlein

CE: Please introduce yourself – who are you, what are your responsibilities at Investor Center Ostbrandenburg?

CN: My name is Christopher Nüßlein, I’m with the Investor Center Ostbrandenburg and in charge of supporting companies with industrial roots which consider establishing new businesses in Germany, also with regard to the upcoming markets in Eastern Europe. These include the Greentech industries, micro-electronics, paper industry and of course steel and lightweight companies.

CE: Could you give us a quick overview of Investor Center Ostbrandenburg?

CN: The Investor Center Ostbrandenburg GmbH (ICOB) is an economic development agency of the cities of Frankfurt (Oder) and Eisenhüttenstadt. Both cities are part of the German Capital Region of Berlin-Brandenburg and are located alongside the River Oder close to the German-Polish border. Both cities have their own industrial tradition and developed themselves to modern business locations in recent years. National and international companies from US, Canada, France, Denmark or Japan have established production-, service- and research facilities on site. Thereby the region scores explicitly with fast approval procedures, skilled and motivated workforce, fully developed industrial and commercial sites, existing halls and an excellent logistic connection.

The ICOB offers enterprises individual and professional support for the entire process of establishing new businesses in East Brandenburg. Our services are free of charge for companies and include:

• Assistance in the development of location based business models
• Advice in subsidy programmes,
• Help in selecting the right site,
• Assistance in contacting co-operation partners and recruiting personnel,
• One-Stop-Agency for all levels of authority

CE: Why is the COMPOSITES EUROPE the right place to introduce the Region?

CN: New technologies are the core of our efforts to attract new companies for creating further growth and new jobs in our region. In our perspective, composite materials and lightweight construction systems have an enormous potential for present and future applications in many fields of business and life. These technologies could superbly complement the available metal processing and supply industries in the region inducing, synergy effects and long-term employment.

CE: Finally, are you looking forward to the show?

CN: Of course, we are looking forward to meeting lots of interesting people and companies at the show, using the chance to introduce our region and find exciting investment projects for further growh in Frankfurt (Oder) and Eisenhüttenstadt. We welcome all companies to have a look into our region and visit us in hall 8B, booth C12. Please note: We are ready when you are!

Dr. Elmar Witten is the managing director of the AVK. The AVK is the Partner of COMPOSITES EUROPE. The AVK holds its annual international AVK Conference at COMPOSITES EUROPE.

Dr. EW: Dr. Elmar Witten
CE:  COMPOSITES EUROPE

CE: Could you please give us a quick overview of the AVK? What is the mission of AVK?

Dr. EW: The AVK (Federation of Reinforced Plastics) represents the interests of manufacturers and processors of reinforced plastics  as well as their raw materials suppliers on a national and European scale.
The AVK currently has more than 220 member companies along the whole value chain of reinforced plastics.
The AVK is the leading organization for all companies at the German composites market.
The mission of the AVK is to provide its´ members with all services one stop and to represent their interests towards all institutions. Thereto we primarily follow up the following objectives: increase the image of composites, promote innovations, offer further trainings, expose sustainability and enlarge the composites network.

CE: What kind of projects have you undertaken for your members? How do your members profit from AVK?

Dr. EW: The companies profit from the AVK membership by attending our unique and exclusive expert task forces. The AVK offers nearly 20 up-to-the-minute as well as permanent topics which are focus of these regularly meetings. The participants of these task forces develop actions for marketing their issues. One example is the AVK task force “Euro-RTM-Group” which is – as in recent years – present at COMPOSITES EUROPE´s Product Demonstration Area. Overall the companies profit from all the AVK activities to promote composites.

CE: Looking to the future, where do you think the composites industry is headed to? What are the biggest challenges and opportunities?

Dr. EW: There are many opportunities for composites, e. g. the industries´ demand for lightweight or sustainable material. The potential for innovations and substitution is  very high. The biggest challenge is still to convince the decision makers in the application industry of the often unknown advantages of the composites material and to find material mix solutions.

CE: How important is COMPOSITES EUROPE for your association?

Dr. EW: The AVK is partner of the COMPOSITES EUROPE from day one. The show is very important for us and our member companies as most of them are exhibitors and/or visitors.
The COMPOSITES EUROPE and the AVK Conference as the opening event cover all the relevant topics in the composites market.

CE: Finally, are you looking forward to the COMPOSITES EUROPE show this year?

Dr. EW: I am of course looking forward to this year´s show as we expect to see some product and process innovations, to meet interesting people and to get some inspiration how we together can help the composites market to grow.

Andreas Schulz is the Marketing Director of CENIT AG. Meet CENIT AG at COMPOSITES EUROPE show.

CE: COMPOSITES EUROPE Team
AS: Anderas Schulz

CE: Could you give us a quick overview of CENIT AG?
AS: CENIT AG has been a consulting and software specialist for optimizing business processes in product lifecycle management (PLM) and enterprise information management (EIM) since 1988. 700 employees world-wide achieved a turnover of 108 m EUR. Our main target market for PLM is the manufacturing industry, while EIM mostly addresses the financial services sector. CENIT’s strategic PLM partners are Dassault Systemes and SAP, for EIM we work with Alfresco, Adobe and IBM. CENIT is headquartered in Germany (Stuttgart) and we are present in all major cities across Germany. CENIT also has branch offices in the US, Switzerland, France, Romania and Japan.

CE: What kind of projects have you undertaken for clients?
AS: In the context of our partnership and our sponsoring activities for the racing team, which participate at FORMULA STUDENTS 2012 ,  we decided to focus on a very specific topic – developing the new monocoque frame for the race car, based on composite technology. At the end of the day we were successful and managed to reduce the total weight of the car from 260 to 240 kg.

CE: How did you come to be involved in the FORMULA STUDENT?
AS: We became involved in the Formula Student project about 12 months ago. Before that, we already had a long-term relationship with the West Saxony University of Zwickau (WHZ) in place, so we decided to become a main sponsor for the racing team alongside BMW.

CE: What challenges did you encounter in this project?
AS: For us as CENIT it wasn’t a challenge – the only challenge the team had was the time pressure to complete the car within a very short deadline.

CE: Looking to the future, where do you think the composites industry is headed?
AS: From our point of view, composite technology is becoming ever more important. The project with the WHZ Racing Team is a good example: composites allowed us to reduce the car’s weight and make it much more efficient from an economical point of view as well.

CE: What will you showcase at the COMPOSITES EUROPE 2012?
AS: As an output of our partnership with the WHZ Racing Team, we will focus on the monocoque project, and the FP612e racer will be presented at our booth. Visitors to the fair can also witness a demonstration of CENIT’s proprietary software toolbox FASTSUITE for offline programming of industrial robots. As value added reseller for the entire PLM portfolio of Dassault Systèmes, CENIT will also take advantage of the COMPOSITES EUROPE 2012 to showcase topics such as design with CATIA and analysis and simulation with SIMULIA.

CE: Finally, are you looking forward to the COMPOSITES EUROPE show?
AS: We are really looking forward to the event as a way to get in touch with existing customers and potential new clients. The fair is a fantastic platform for doing this.

Maximilian Hacker is 25 years old and the owner of BRComposites. He absolved his training as procedural mechanics of plastic and rubber technology, specialized in fibre composites.

 Activities previous to his self-employment:

1. Fischer & Entwicklung Landshut
2. Pilatus Aircraft Schweiz
3. Company with Formel 1 experience   (company name is not mentioned because of legal reasons)

CE: COMPOSITES EUROPE Team

MH: Maximilian Hacker

CE: Please introduce yourself. Who are you and what is your responsibility at BRComposites?

MH: BRComposites has exists for two years now. We are a young and very innovative company with a continuous strong growth. Furthermore, we think that  well-trained employees and to the original rules of craftsmanship are very important.

I am proud to say that we are already training employees. In my opinion there is still a lack of skilled workers in the composites industry.

We develop and offer individual production to our customers. Productions up to 10,000 standard parts are easily possible. In this way the volume of production is growing. Our production is done without autoclaves and everything is hand-made.

BRComposites

CE: So how did you experience the COMPOSITES EUROPE 2011 show? What are your impressions?

MH: This is the first time for BRComposites as an exhibitor at the COMPOSITES EUROPE. Actually we have been planning the first exhibition in 2016. At least that has been the conclusion of a family dinner. However, by coincidental, I got a phone call from the COMPOSITES EUROPE team the next day. During this conversation I received information about a funding possibility through BMWi. Because of the funding possibility and the sponsoring by Jost Chemicals, which is a close partner, we decided to book a booth for the COMPOSITES EUROPE 2011.

Mr. Hacker was reacting spontaneously when we asked him about his feelings as participant of the CE 2011. He was euphorically describing the exhibition as gigantic. The company had a huge success, a great number of good meetings and contacts. The booth was constantly busy because so many visitors were interested in their products. In his opinion, the exhibition service and the whole organisation was very commendable.

We closed the interview by talking about the presentation of innovations brought by BRC.

BRComposites presented flexible carbon protectors which is already used e.g. by the v. The jacket (have a look at the picture) in the background is specially made for extreme mountainbikers and is equipped with flexible carbon protectors. All visitors have been wondering what kind of material this is. However, we could not get any detailed information.

Thank you so much for the interesting and open conversation with Mr. Hacker.

We met Michael Scharmer at our show in Stuttgart. For MSC Polymer AG it is a premiere to exhibit at CE show. www.msc-polymer.com

Q: Question

MS: Answer of Michael Scharmer

Michael Scharmer (man on the right side on the picture) www.msc-polymer.com/

Q: Please introduce yourself and MSC Polymer AG.

MS: MSC Polymer AG is a capital markets company LC. I am in the bord of directors as a director of technology and the Chief Executive Officer. 1988 the company was founded as a technical consulting company. Later on it had been developed towards a distributor of materials. Glass fibre reinforced epoxy laminates are the backbone of the classical PCB. Our customers already expected that we supply materials for premanufactured and pretooled. So we had to invest in suitable machinery and step by step we became a manufacturer of glass fibre reinforced parts for broad applications (despite PCB, our core business). We are at at the COMPOSITES EUROPE show because we had more and more inquieries asking for new materials as they are being shown here.We knew nobody in this industry, now we know a lot! Exhibitions are not only to attract new customers, but also to come in touch with the industry. We wanted to find new suitable suppliers and tool makers. In addition, we have a lot of contacts, for example to science institutions. It is really worth to come here. The next time in Düsseldorf we will bring more examples with us made of carbon fibre. In a few years we want to become an important European player in the manufacture of 3D-parts for many application industries, especially for the machinery industry.

Q: So how did you come to the COMPOSITES EUROPE show?

MS: We observed the development within the composites industry and the COMPOSITES EUROPE trade show. I asked myself where is this industry going? Looks like it is getting really important. I would have come as a visitor anyway. So why not taking a booth? The stand is also a meeting point. It can not be replaced by google or other social platforms. In the evening you also meet your visitors in the same hotel at the bar. This trade show is very well organized, not bureaucratic at all and our administration efforts to manage our participation were markable low compared to other major German exhibitions.

Moreover, it takes place in one of Germany’s most beautiful exhibition centres!

Our team met the exhibitor Kegelmann Technik at COMPOSITES EUROPE show 2011 in Stuttgart! Today is the 3rd and last day of our exhibition.

Kegelmann Technik presents it’s product range here. The company offers prototyping and small-series production for complex prefabricated parts made of metal and plastic.

Kegelmann Technik at COMPOSITES EUROPE 2011, Mr. Weber, http://www.ktechnik.de/

80 employees work at the location of Rodgau-Jügesheim. In this way Kegelmann Technik unifies 100% in-house production depth in one company, from the design, construction, rapid-prototyping technology, model making, tool making to injection moulding.

We asked Mr. Weber (on the picture) if Kegelmann Technik alsways worked in the field of composites.  He answered “Yes, we have worked in the field of composites technology for many years now. At the COMPOSITES EUROPE show we present the RTM-production technology in the prototyping phase.”

So how was their impression of our show? Kegelmann Technik is a new exhibitor this year! The answer is “Positiv. COMPOSITES EUROPE is a specialised exhibition. Here you can find the market place for the area of composites manufacturing.”

Come to the show and meet Kegelmann Technik in hall 4/booth E65! http://www.ktechnik.de/

COMPOSITES EUROPE Blog met Mr. Stefan Hilbrath – divisional director of UHU Industrieklebstoffe. For the first time UHU will exhibit at COMPOSITES EUROPE 2011 in Stuttgart. We have asked him a few questions to get some interesting information.

Q: Question
A: Answer

UHU Indutry adhesives - new exhibitor at COMPOSITES EUROPE 2011 in Stuttgart - http://uhu-profi.de/

Done and dusted. The German government’s decision to withdraw from nuclear energy has also paved the way for the development of renewable forms of energy. The proportion of electricity generation from renewable sources is expected to rise to at least 80 percent by 2050. Wind energy is planned to play a major role in this. Last year the sector contributed 7.9 percent to the total amount of electricity generated in Germany.

The energy policy of the German government includes giving greater support to offshore wind farms. The remuneration for this power is to be raised to 15 cents per kilowatt hour. Operators of onshore wind turbines will continue to receive up to 10.2 cents per kilowatt hour. 0.5 cents are paid for power from new wind parks if the old equipment went online before 2002. The new turbine should also deliver twice the amount of power than the old one.

Example of how the crystal structure could be used in the rotor blade of a wind turbine. (Photo: Wüstefeld)

These factors therefore represent healthy prospects for the future of the wind power sector. The manufacturers of fibre-reinforced composites are also expecting to benefit from this development – because modern wind turbines are inconceivable without glass and carbon fibre-reinforced plastics. The organisers of the international Composites Europe (CE) exhibition, to be held from 27 to 29 September 2011 in Stuttgart, recognised this early on and are giving the industry the platform it deserves. Well-known producers and processors of fibre composites for the wind energy sector and the relevant machine producers and suppliers get together each year at the event.

But it is not only the presence of the big names which makes a visit to the exhibition so worthwhile. Jens-Hagen Wüstefeld from Starnberg, for instance, has developed a crystalline structure as a lightweight construction element. It yields an 85 percent reduction in weight, lower manufacturing costs, outstanding rigidity and design flexibility in comparison to a solid material. Starting out with a geometric concept, he made a three dimensional lattice from triangles, similar to a crystal structure. Any forces applied to such a symmetrical grid are distributed optimally to adjacent surfaces and edges.

These lightweight elements can be manufactured to any scale, from any materials and in any form – including those appropriate for wind turbines. The resulting reduced weight of the tower would allow the foundation to be simplified. And the lower weight of the rotor would result in lower bearing loads and therefore reduced wear and greater efficiency in the entire turbine. The reduced amounts of materials required would also reduce production costs. Individual segments can easily be joined together, simplifying both transportation and erection.

Audi, too, has now joined the race. Following BMW’s deployment of SGL Carbon and Mercedes’ use of Toray, Audi has now entered into a partnership devoted to the development and fully automatic production of carbon fibre-reinforced materials. In the future, Audi’s reputation as a pioneer of lightweight construction will not be based exclusively on its use of aluminium. Vehicles containing the new material will be marketed under the “ultra” label.

In collaboration with the machinery manufacturer Voith, the Audi engineers are setting up the industrial-scale manufacture of fibre-reinforced materials for the series production of cars; their main goal is to develop a fully automatic process chain. With series production their ultimate target, both partners are devoting themselves not only to the creation of processing engineering and mass production methods for conventional fibre-reinforced plastics but also to the development of new and innovative high-tech materials.

The long flap of the folding top cover and the large rear side panels of the Audi R8 GT Spyder are made from CFRP. (Photo: Audi)

To date, Audi has only used CFRPs in its high-priced super sports cars such as the Audi R8 GT Spyder. The long flap of the folding top cover and the large rear side panels of the recently launched 560 PS version of the sports car are made from CFRP. The material is also used in the modified front spoiler, in the fixed rear spoiler and in the new rear bumper. These components account for total weight savings of 5.5 kilograms.

“Low-fat vehicles” featuring fibre composites will also be highlighted at the international Composites Europe (CE) trade fair, to be held from 27 to 29 September 2011 in Essen. The BMW partner SGL Carbon will be there to demonstrate its expertise. The company supplies the carbon fibres for the Megacity Vehicle. This is the first time in which CFRP parts have been used in large-scale series production. This takes the company a step closer to producing affordable lightweight vehicles suitable for mass production based on fibre composites – putting BMW a nose ahead in the technology race. This is shown by the efforts of the rivals who are doing all they can to catch up. Take Audi, for example: it has set up an interdisciplinary carbon fibre research unit at its Neckarsulm plant aimed at adapting the CFRP technology processes for use in series production. The sister marque Lamborghini has also set up a research unit for carbon fibre technologies at the new Advanced Composites Research Center (ACRC) in Sant’Agata Bolognese.

The Abraj Al-Bait Towers also known as the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower is a complex under construction in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The building holds and will break several world records in the construction world, including: the tallest hotel in the world, constructed with the tallest clock tower in the world and displaying the world’s largest clock face. COMPOSITES EUROPE Blog met one of the project partner for this – Dominik Ch. Scheurer:

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