GLENWOOD SPRINGS, CO — 29 June 2010. Fiberforge announces today that Fraunhofer ICT and Fiberforge have started a strategic collaboration on R&D projects for various industries such as, automotive and aerospace. As part of this collaboration, Fraunhofer ICT will be installing a RELAY® Station 2000 at its state-of-the-art thermoplastics research center. This will be the first RELAY Station installation in Europe offering clients the ability to develop and demonstrate the production of thermoplastic advanced composite structures upward of 2 m x 2 m (80 in. x 80 in.) in size on a full-scale production work cell.

The RELAY (Rapid, Efficient, Layup) Station creates tailored multi-ply preforms from unidirectional thermoplastic prepreg tape that can then be formed into a final part. Unidirectional tape combines a reinforcing fiber, such as glass and carbon fiber, with any of a variety of thermoplastic resin types, such as Polypropylene, Polyamide, or PEEK. Tailored blanks™ can be made with locally varying thickness and fiber orientation to maximize structural performance. The fully automated RELAY Station reduces the labor intensity of advanced composite part manufacturing, thus expanding the commercial reach of these materials into higher volume markets and products. Tailored blanks can also be used as structural inserts in injection and compression molded parts for cost and shape-stiffness optimized solutions.

“With its long history of innovation in thermoplastic composite processing, complementary partnerships with other firms, extensive capital equipment, and staff of industry-leading composite experts, Fraunhofer ICT was a natural choice for establishing a development and demonstration centre in Europe,” says David Cramer, Fiberforge’s Chief Technology Officer. “Through this new partnership with Fraunhofer ICT, we will be able to work more easily with customers to apply the technology in new products and in combination with other thermoplastic processing technologies.”

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Henning, Deputy Director of the Fraunhofer ICT explains the benefit on the European side: „Fiberforge’s innovative tape layup process opens up new possibilities for producing thermoplastic advanced composite parts in a fast and automated process. Combined with our expertise in other thermoplastic processing technologies, Fiberforge’s RELAY Station will expand our portfolio in the research and development of process technologies for fiber-reinforced plastics.”

Fraunhofer ICT Information
Fraunhofer ICT scientists carry out research and development work in the business areas of defense and security, air and space travel, automotive and transport technology, chemistry and process engineering, energy and environment. Fraunhofer ICT is one of the 59 institutes that currently make up the Fraunhofer Society. Beside contract research for industry, the Fraunhofer ICT also works closely with commercial companies, often through research projects co-financed by the German government or the European Union.

About Fiberforge
Fiberforge is a technology company that is commercializing breakthrough manufacturing systems that enable the affordable production of lightweight advanced composite parts at high volumes. Fiberforge’s proprietary RELAY® Station—protected with multiple patents and trade secrets—produces parts with high fiber alignment, high fiber fraction, and long fiber length at high speed with minimal scrap. Fiberforge’s technology and its tailored blanks are protected by US patents (6,607,626, 6,939,423 and 7,235,149), US patents pending and International patents granted and pending.

Any projections and forward-looking statements in this release are based on best practice analysis and research from independent advisors to Fiberforge. The conclusions drawn, while the result of the best efforts of the staff of Fiberforge, are in no way a promise of delivery, and they can, and will, be changed according to future input.

The FRP panel with XPS-core combines the advantages of a lightweight construction element with outstanding insulation characteristics. Its smooth surface makes it the ideal material for the high requirements of the automotive industry.

Besides numerous other applications, a trailer construction company has currently used our fiber-reinforced composite panel for the production of a mobile doping test station which will come into operation during the Tour de France 2010.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF presented a four-meter-high exhibit at the COMPOSITES EUROPE – which is equipped with sensor technology SHM-wing mock-up of a light aircraft.

Fiber composites offer special advantages because of their lightweight potential in the aviation sector. The lightweight advantages may be more complex because of the damage behavior in comparison with metallic materials therefore they are not always fully exploit. In the airline for example, the impact is from foreign bodies in composite structures is a particular risk factor, limits the applications and often leads to large safety factors that require a certain amount of oversizing. Sensors which recognize, for example in the wing not externally visible structural damage at an early stage can reduce the inspection effort. The operational safety of the structure is ensured by the design and inspections at regular intervals manually. Through automated monitoring with additional structure integrated sensors can be saved in future costs and weight.

The basic idea: Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is like the nervous system of a component. Sensors and a transmitter register external influences and track damage.

In particular, foreign bodies, such as hail or bird strike are a great danger to aircraft using a split factor when setting stones on the runway or damage caused by falling tools for maintenance work occur. In composite structures, and sandwich construction such damage is rarely visible from the outside. The security operation is so far ensured through extensive inspections and appropriate interpretation of the components.

Thanks to the SHM systems can reduce cost, weight and maintenance, lightweight structures can play out so your advantage even more. Self reduced downtime and losing weight reduces fuel consumption. The inspection effort is reduced by the continuous monitoring of the aircraft envelope, even in remote areas. Sensors act as including electrical and optical strain gauges and piezoelectric accelerometers and fiber modules.

With the integration of different sensor technologies in the production of aircraft structures, the Fraunhofer LBF works interdisciplinary and intensively together with companies of the sensor technology and manufacturing.

Aircraft Wing Mock-Up with integrated SHM system

This exhibit is a full scale wing mock-up as a feasibility study for future Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) concepts. Three kinds of sensors – piezo transducers, optical and electricalstrain gauges – are integrated in the wing, some even in the GFRP-structure itself and are used for measuring strain in flight. Load-Monitoring of structural strain will enable to estimate the residual lifetime of a structure in the future. Thus the knowledge of the actual loading helps evaluating individual (and therefore longer) maintenance intervals, as well as exploiting the full lightweight potential.

About the Fraunhofer LBF

With its comprehensive expertise in the fields of structural durability, adaptronics and system reliability, the Fraunhofer LBF develops, evaluates and implements customised solutions for all safety components – ranging from the materials to whole systems and from the first idea to the product. It works in conjunction with the associated System Reliability and Machine Acoustics department (SzM) of the Technical University Darmstadt and benefits from the experience of a team of around 300 staff. Cooperation projects with renowned partners exemplify its particular closeness to the industry. Automotive and commercial vehicle engineering, rail transportation technology, shipbuilding, machine and plant engineering, aviation, energy technology and other sectors utilise the proven expertise and cutting edge technology provided in the laboratory and testing areas that extend across more than 17,000 m².

One of the most established uses for composites is in the building industry. It has made use of fibre-reinforced structures for over 30 years now. The reason is that these fibre composite materials are suitable for use in countless building and construction applications. Pipes, sleepers, boards, blocks, linings, mats, cladding, posts, foundations, tanks, housings, containers, doors, coatings, shafts, adhesives, coverings, banks, bricks, boxes, walls, basins, frames, steps, gutters – the possibilities are virtually endless.

Composites are now firmly integrated materials in civil engineering and structural building work. Designers and architects use composites as fully-fledged materials alongside traditional materials such as concrete, marble, granite, steel and wood. In combination with conventional building materials, honeycomb structures in particular offer a wide range of benefits in comparison to using the standard material alone.  An example: Offering the same mechanical resistance and rigidity as natural stone, the weight of a sandwich structure consisting of a 28 millimetre honeycomb layer and a five millimetre thick layer of marble is a third of that of a layer of conventional natural stone.

In the drive to conserve resources and ensure sustainability, renewable raw materials are increasingly being used for fibre-reinforced and matrix resins. There is also growing interest in recycling and in reusing the materials for similar applications.  Experts believe that a new trend is emerging in the increasing use of thermoplastic composite reinforced plastics. Numerous exhibitors at the international Composites Europe (CE) trade fair, to be held in Essen in September, will be demonstrating the innovative force behind composite applications in the building industry.

Example – Dennert Poraver: Dennert manufactures this lightweight expanded glass granulate filler from recycled glass using a patented process. It is used as an aggregate in solid wall systems, in plaster, mortar, tile adhesives, textured wallpaper and façade profiles. Poraver is light, pressure-resistant, chemically stable, free of hazardous substances and is suitable for use as thermal and sound insulation. It is therefore used by the building industry for various purposes including reaction resin grout, polymer concrete, kitchen work surfaces and mineral foams. Roughly one million cubic metres are produced each year.

Use of Poraver in acoustic boards in a multi-purpose hall in Ochtendung in Rhineland-Palatinate (photo: Dennert Poraver)

The Bodensee Racing Team, or in short BRT, is sponsored amongst others by Harke Chemicals this year. It is one of the teams that takes part in this year’s Formula Student, a competition where students from all over the world compete against each other in self-constructed racing cars. “The contact to the Bodensee Racing Team was established during a booth conversation at the Composites Europe 2009 in Stuttgart, on which we presented epoxy resin systems. After the students from Konstanz had introduced us to the project we immediately decided to sponsor the team with our epoxy resins”, says Dirk Forler, Managing
Director of Harke Chemicals GmbH.

The “Formula1” of the student world takes place in different countries. In this year the BRT participate in Formula Student Races in Austria, Hungary and Italy with its ‘Iltis10’, which is the name of the racing car. The team has put an entire year’s passion and sweat into this car. To start with there was the designprocess, further the physical construction, then the testing – everything was realized by the students on their own. Racing is a costly affair, therefore the teams depend on the support of the economy. This year Harke Chemicals sponsors the team of 54 members with epoxy resins of their supply program, which are used to build the covering of the racing car in weight-saving construction in order to improve the speed.

So the fibre-glass frame of the covering was laminated and cured at room temperature in a vacuum process. The approach is called RIM technique (Resin Infusion Molding) or, in general, infusion technique. The principle is to inject liquid resin of low viscosity (under 500 mPas) at low pressure in only one working process into the mold, which is filled with reinforcing agents as for instance glass-fibre. Thereby the mold is covered with a flexible membrane and is thus used as a counterblock. Simultaneously the resin is pressed into the mold at low pressure. Through this procedure the epoxy resin can disperse among the reinforcing agents in an optimal way and cure in the mold by beeing heated afterwards.

The Bodensee Racing Team has constructed a racing car and organized a racing team for the 5th time already – always aiming at improving their results of the previous year. Students of different disciplines like engineering, economy and art at Konstanz University are the team members, which is a perfect precondition for this interdisciplinary task. The competition isn’t only about being the fastest car on the road but about being top in the overall standings. There are two disciplines. One discipline evaluates the static performance, like the presentation of the business plan, the design, the construction and the cost optimization of the components. The other one is the dynamic discipline. Here the focus is on acceleration, speed, brake ability, bank, reliability, dynamics and fuel economy. A jury of experts in motorsports, the automotive industry and its suppliers evaluate every racing car in the different disciplines. If everything goes well the BRT can improve last years results. And because of the fact that cool-down after one is the warm-up for the next race, the Bodensee Racing Team can expect support of Harke Chemicals next year.

Dates:
Formula Student Austria (11.08.-14.08.2010)
Formula Student Hungary (19.08.-22.8.2010)
Formula Student Italy (03.09.-06.09.2010)

Information on the company
Harke Chemicals GmbH has supplied chemicals for different applications for almost 45 years and has built up a comprehensive expertise in this field. The diversified portfolio ranges from, amongst others, basic chemicals, further pure chemicals for the electronic industry up to customized epoxy resin systems. The Managing Director of Harke Chemicals is Dirk Forler. The company belongs to the Harke Group, which – as an internationally acting marketer and distributor – opens industrial sales and supply markets for their customers and suppliers in the fields of chemicals, plastics, pharma and food in Europe and worldwide. Moreover, the group of companies offers affiliated services like e.g. contract packing, contract manufacturing and business-specific legal advice. Founded in 1965 as SYNTANA Handelsgesellschaft E. Harke GmbH & Co. KG, the trading house has expanded to a worldwide-acting group of companies, as a result of its steady growth and its consistent development of their business segments. Today HARKE Group has a turnover of 80 Mio. Euros and 140 employees. Thorsten Harke has been leading the family business in second generation for nearly 20 years today.

Source of supply:
HARKE Composites BU of HARKE Chemicals GmbH, Xantener Straße 1,
45479 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, phone +49 (0) 208/3069-0, fax +49 (0) 208/3069-1111, e-mail: composites@harke.com, website: www.harke.com/composites

PR contact HARKE Group:
Simone Drott, HARKE Services GmbH, Xantener Straße 1, 45479 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, phone +49 (0) 208/3069-2570, e-mail: sdr@harke.com

Website Bodensee Racing Team: www.brt-konstanz.de

11 March this year saw the launch of the new international “Composites” Masters course, being held in English, at the Private University of Applied Sciences in Göttingen.  This means that now, for the first time in Europe, there is a course of studies aimed at resolving the international shortage of graduates in fibre-reinforced plastics. 21 engineers from Spain, France, the United Kingdom, India and Germany will now become experts in carbon composites during the three-semester course.

The recruitment and training of specialists are gaining in significance for companies in the industry – and not only in Germany – thanks to the success story of fibre-reinforced plastics and the steady growth of the sector.  The Göttingen higher education institution has made a name for itself as a source of new talent for the composites industry. The first students enrolled on German Bachelors and Masters courses in Composite Materials four years ago.

The engineering specialisation has been steadily gaining in popularity ever since. Including the new entrants, there are currently 180 students on the Bachelors and Masters study programmes. 79 students have already graduated from the German-language “Verbundwerkstoffe/Composites” programme. These are now working in various application areas of fibre-reinforced plastics such as the aerospace, automotive and engineering industries.

The success of this programme was a key factor in the institution’s decision to offer an international Masters course. “Together with our trustee partner Airbus we have worked hard to widen the access of the programme to include international engineers.  We will now be training specialists for the French, Spanish and UK markets to the same high standard as on our Germany-oriented Master programme,” said Prof. Dr. Bernt R. A. Sierke, President of the PFH.

The international Composites Europe (CE) trade fair, to be held in Essen in September, provides a networking platform where potential candidates and companies looking for suitable recruits can meet.  In the “Recruiting Area” young people can talk to companies, have their applications checked over by a recruitment agency and receive personal advice on aptitude, applications and starting out in work.  Companies, for their part, have the opportunity to identify committed and suitably qualified potential new employees.

New course at the Göttingen Private University of Applied Sciences: a new international Masters course in “Composites”, being held in English, has been launched (photo: PFH)

Every movement must be just right when the blade and rotor hub of a wind turbine are married together at a dizzy height.  Because screwing the rotor blade onto the rotor hub 100 metres above the ground represents a major bonding technology challenge. Heavy-duty threaded bushes are bonded into the fibre-reinforced flange on the blade holder of each blade – and the bond must be absolutely rock solid.

The epoxy resin and polyurethane need to be mixed to just the right ratio to ensure that the inserts are properly bonded. To automate this process safely and reliably, the Hessian family-owned company Tartler has developed multi-component metering and mixing systems which meet precisely these requirements – for example a customised version of its Nodopox 200 M/U. With an output of less than 0.2 litres per minute and a mixing ratio accuracy with less than two percent deviation, the threaded bushes can be bonded to withstand the tensile force of over 20 tonnes.

The system has a decisive process engineering advantage: its uses the original packing drums of the material manufacturer.  It pumps the two high-viscosity components directly from the 200 litre drums, which contain no bubbles and some of which have been vacuum-filled.  Depending on the material used, this does away with the need for stirring the mixture and transfering it to the work dispenser.  The components can then be heated to the required processing temperature of up to 80° between the pump and the mixing head.

Siempelkamp Handling Systeme is also working on a process for automating the manufacture of rotor blades for wind turbines. The new development automatically brings together and bonds the core material and the covering layer – in a machine with a working width of three metres. All kinds of materials can be used for the core.

A large number of processing steps are still carried out manually in the composites industry, which is why the automation of product stages is now gaining in importance. Numerous examples will be on display at the international Composites Europe (CE) trade fair, to be held in Essen in September, where both Tartler and Siempelkamp will be showcasing their latest products.

Neumayer Station III, shortly Neumayer III, named after the geophysicist Georg von Neumayer, is a German polar research station of the Alfred Wegener Institute in the Antarctic.  It is located on the Atka Bay on the 200-meter-thick Ekström Ice Shelf.

In February 2009, the third generation of the permanently occupied Neumayer research station in the Antarctic inaugurated, with the target, to gather long-term and precise data of climate, geophysics and environment in the Antarctic. The operation is designed for 25-30 years, the entire project will cost 39 million €.Besides the main directions of meteorology, geophysics and atmospheric chemistry that are researched since the 1980s, there have been five years, research on infrasound and since 2005 on marine acoustics. All interior rooms of the station are composed of containers which are conjoined with each other, without adjacent inside walls or with a gangway connecting passage, depending on the room size and which all are adjacent to a central connecting passage. All bottoms, ceilings and walls of these living containers have been bonded with COSMOPUR 890/805 to a high strength connection onto the steel frame. The produced container has to withstand a load of 3.000 kg (certified by the “Germanische Lloyd”), cold resistance up to -60°C with sufficient flexibility and flame retardant properties of the adhesive according to Wheelmark (verification certificate of SEE-BG). COSMOPUR 890 / 805 by Weiss Chemie + Technik fulfils all these conditions.

Weiss Chemie + Technik is a producer of adhesives and special cleaners for the manufacturing of PVC-, aluminium- and wood windows and doors.
They furthermore offer a wide range of products for the fields of industry, automotive, navy and trade. Meet them at COMPOSITES EUROPE in Essen  show (14-16 September 2010) in Hall 10-11/C04.

Webcams at Neumayer Station III: http://www.awi.de/NM_WebCam/

Sustainability and questions it raises regarding the effects materials, products and processes have on the environment is a major current topic and one that influences all aspects of business.  The automotive and electronic industries have already implemented current regulations on recycling and CO2 emissions. Demands on the use of sustainable materials and products in the building industry amongst others are now gaining pace too.

The effects that composites have on the environment are also subject to scrutiny.  In response to this trend the AVK (Industrievereinigung Verstärkte Kunststoffe e.V. (The Association of Reinforced Plastics)) took the initiative and formed a “Sustainability” team last year. The objective is to create a platform to discuss experiences and to learn more about the real impact composites are having on the environment and in turn the risks and opportunities they present us with. It is hoped that an evaluation of composites as an eco-efficient solution will be the outcome.

Gabriel Thomas from Ticona GmbH, also The Managing Director of the AVK and Ben Drogt from DSM Composite Resins are the initiators of this team. 
The International AVK Conference traditionally marks the beginning of the COMPOSITES EUROPE.  This is the place where 500 international experts spend two days talking about relevant subjects regarding fibre-reinforced materials.

Also exhibiting at CE 2010 is the French company Nidaplast Composites, the designer of extruded polypropylene honeycomb materials, and who is a leader in terms of sustainable development.  Nidaplast’s goal is the reduction of greenhouse emissions and will therefore reveal a “CO2 balance sheet” for the first time showing the level of CO2 emitted during the life-time of thermo-plastic honeycomb structures.

The honeycombs are light-weight (95% hollow space) and are sandwiched between two panels, thereby making this sandwich structure economical and environmentally friendly. “Nidaplast honeycombs provide advantages for the protection of the environment: firstly their consumption of raw materials is low, and secondly they are lightweight. These factors contribute to lowering the level of greenhouse gases emitted during manufacture and also during transport,” explains Luc Nuttens, the company’s Head of Product Development.

The “CO2 balance sheet” confirms Nidapast’s commitment to providing its clients with solutions in the field of environmentally-friendly design. The “CO2 balance-sheet” was developed by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency ADEME and is a standardised method for the measurement of greenhouse gas emissions resulting directly or indirectly from an activity.

Sustainability and energy efficiency: What does the future look like for international freight traffic? What new approach can freight forwarders and logistics specialists adopt, so that they are able to transport their clients’ large loads under favorable conditions? How can such an approach ensure high environmental standards? The solution lies in lightweight design for trucks and freight containers, where fuel consumption and transport costs are reduced, CO2 emissions are lowered and climate friendliness is increased.

Part 2:

Food safe insulator
Sandwich elements feature exceptional insulation characteristics when a fiber-reinforced composite (GRP) is combined with PU or XPS foam. The decisive factor in this respect is the composite material’s low thermal conductivity, which also gives it a distinct advantage over steel sheeting and aluminum. It can thus be used to build effectively insulated refrigerated containers and refrigerated vehicle bodies. For example, the insulation effect in a sandwich element consisting of two-millimeter thick layers of GRP and a fifty-millimeter thick layer of polyurethane foam can be compared with that of a forty-millimeter thick cavity block wall. As the material is also optionally produced with a pore-free surface, it can also be used for temperature-controlled transportation, haulage of foodstuffs and in vending trucks. Fitted as an interior face sheet, it can be very easily cleaned and leaves no residues and is thus able to comply with strict hygiene requirements. LAMILUX fiber-reinforced composites are also food safe, which means they do not release toxic substances into foodstuffs. This quality is substantiated by test certifications.

Highly resistant and an attractive surface finish
In addition to these important features, LAMILUX materials also excel due to their long service life and their durability. When used as a component in sandwich elements, they provide such an efficient stabilizing effect that side walls and floors are easily able to withstand the high compressive and flexural stresses experienced in the trucking industry. GRP roofing will also not be dented as a result of a heavy hailstorm. Another advantage lies in the fact that if damage should still occur, even on a large scale due to an accident, the damaged parts can be easily repaired or whole GRP sections can be replaced. Excellent resistance to UV light, weathering and corrosion also ensure a long service life and color fastness. These outstanding characteristics have been demonstrated by extensive, internationally recognized test methods such as the XENO test, long-term weathering tests, and the salt spray test in compliance with DIN EN ISO 9227.
In addition to these physical and chemical properties, fiber-reinforced composites also impress due to their attractive surface finish. Besides high-gloss and high-grade finishes, the material can be manufactured in a variety of colors, such as those in the RAL and NCS color systems, or customer-specific colors. GRP offers the advantage that color particles are worked directly into the material during the production process. As a result, applying a subsequent paint finish is unnecessary. Moreover, the surface won’t chip due to corrosion or mechanical effects, unlike conventional paint finishes on steel sheeting or aluminum.