Fastening & Assembly Solutions & Technology July 2012

FAST JULY 2012
FASTUPDATES News analysis
High performance
composites influence the
business agenda
From a historical perspective, a mixed set of factors have affected the composites industry, crossing
socio-political, technology, marketing and environmental issues. Philippe Michaud discusses how the
market has evolved to place the development of high performance composites technologies firmly on
the agenda as a key enabler across a number of market sectors
Composite technologies have
come a long way in a relatively
short time and have made high
performance composites an
extremely attractive option for
original equipment manufacturers
(OEMs). Because they are
lightweight, they bring performance
advantages to numerous
applications.
Focused on producing high
quality, complex and lightweight
parts, many industries are
addressing how to strike a balance
between speeding up parts
manufacturing, reducing investment
costs and producing excellent
results. Processing capabilities
have thereby fallen in the
spotlight with the onus on the
requirement for better, high performance
technologies.
In the automotive sector, lowering
vehicle weight is driven by
the need to create overall better
fuel efficiencies and enhanced
power to weight ratios. Recent
RTM was used to make the engine
air box for Ferrari F430
12
years have seen high levels of
activity in the global electric
vehicles (EV) industry. However,
electric vehicles having particularly
heavy batteries, efforts are
focused on how to make them as
light weight as possible in order
to achieve a better performance.
Government directives did
originally spur initiatives to
reduce carbon emissions, but
what we’re seeing now is both
pull from the market and push
from the OEMs, focused on the
delivery of enhanced vehicle performance.
By and large, these
influencers are mostly responsible
for the significant growth in
the composites market today.
More and more manufacturers
are evaluating their carbon composites
processing methods and
realising the benefits of high
speed resin transfer moulding
(RTM) for part-a-minute production.
Huntsman’s resin systems
for high pressure RTM and compression
moulding are already
proving their ability to offer
advanced processing properties
and significant production time
savings for direct processing,
with the former enabling production
cycles as short as three minutes
and the latter providing even
shorter cycles of less than a
minute.
There are differences in opinion
across the automotive industry
concerning just how much
weight can be saved, but insight
and the widespread adoption of
this technology shows that when
processed accurately, significant
weight savings and the associated
New materials enhance technical performance in the fabrication,
repair and assembly of aircraft components on airliners such as the
Airbus A320
benefits of enhanced power-toweight
ratios will follow.
Aerospace advancement
Moving from one market in relative
infancy to another in a more
advanced stage, it would be apt to
say that the aerospace market has
been enjoying the benefits of
composites for many years. From
a research point of view, the next
technological challenges centre
on the exploration of new processes
that reduce manufacturing
times and new materials to
enhance the technical performance
in the fabrication, repair
and assembly of aircraft components
on short to medium range
airliners such as the Boeing 737
or Airbus A320.
Priorities for wind energy
Wind Energy is another key market
for composites and blade
manufacturers are very much
focused on the continuous
improvement of wind turbine performance.
Requirements for
developing higher performance
materials with an emphasis on
lowering toxic risk while sustaining
very good processing conditions
is another key area in which
Huntsman is actively concentrating
its efforts.
Technical and market developments
over the past two decades
have turned this once marginal
application into a global giant,
which is also fast becoming one
of the world’s largest markets for
composites.
Wind energy is undisputedly
the number one choice in
Europe's efforts to move towards
clean, renewable power and is
expected to power industry, business
and homes with clean electricity
for many years to come.
Philippe Michaud is Huntsman Advanced Materials technology director
HUNTSMAN ADVANCED MATERIALS +41 61 299 2664