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june 2012 | Vol. 18 | no. 3
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Pultruded Windows Going Commercial?
Manufacturing a Massive Museum Façade
Wind Turbine Blades: Glass Fiber vs. Carbon Fiber
FilaMenT WindinG
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Table of Contents
FEATURES
June 2012 | Vol. 18 | No. 3
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Underground pipe may seem like a mundane, unglamorous application, but when those buried pipes are very large and specifi ed in composite materials, design and fabrication is a challenge. Fiberglass Structural Engineering Inc. (FSE, Bellingham, Wash.) specializes in meeting that challenge with fi lament wound piping that is a product of careful design and analysis (see p. 44).Source | FSE
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COMPOSITESWATCH
Automotive | 9
Energy | 12
News | 14
COLUMNS
Editor | 3Trouble brewing
Composites: Past, | 5Present & Future
DEPARTMENTS
Work In Progress | 18
Applications | 37
Calendar | 38
New Products | 39
Marketplace | 44
Showcase | 45
Ad Index | 45
COVER PHOTO
JEC Europe 2012 ReportA big, busy show and a big variety of new developments boded well for the industry’s future.
Pultruded Windows | Rising High?New pultrudable glass fi ber/resin formulations enable window manufacturers to break in to commercial architecture and build market share in residential construction.By Michael R. LeGault
Inside Manufacturing Big Museum | Big StructuresMassive aramid/carbon composites sandwich panels make Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum the largest composite-clad building in the world.By Karen Wood
Engineering Insights Designing for High Pressure | Large-diameter Underground PipeCareful analysis ensures success of buried composite piping for industrial applications. By Sara Black
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Editor
Composites Technology (ISSN 1083-4117) is published bimonthly (February, April, June, August, October & December) by Gardner Business Media, Inc. Corporate and production offi ces: 6915 Valley Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45244. Editorial offi ces: PO Box 992, Morrison, CO 80465. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, OH and additional mailing offi ces. Copyright © 2012 by Gardner Publications Inc. All rights reserved.
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Events in Greece really are important
to us North Americans (and vice versa) whether
we like it or not.
Jeff Sloan
Trouble Brewing
It’s hard, I suppose, to watch the TV news and get too excited about events “over there” — with “there” being that place far, far away from wherever you are. Indeed, we here in Colorado fi nd it challenging to link events in China or Australia with events in our own corner of the world. And we face this challenge with the full knowledge that the world is fl atter (à la Th omas Friedman), smaller and more connected than ever. Which means, of course, that events in China and Australia or — to put a fi ner point on it, Greece — really are important to us North Americans (and vice versa) whether we like it or not.
Greeks are rioting in the streets, fi ghting European Union-imposed austerity measures, and trying (but at this writing, failing) to organize a new government. Th ey feel bullied by the EU and are perilously close to defaulting on their debt. Th is poten-tial Greek tragedy has attracted much attention in the last few months, with not-so-solvent Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy watching nervously in the wings. Th e rest of us are just glad we’re not in the Euro Zone and wishing the Greeks best of luck getting out of the pickle they’re in.
Would that the debt contagion were so confi ned. Th e analogy I’ve heard suggests that the challenges Greece faces are more Titanic-like: Th e ship (global currency stability) has hit the iceberg and is taking on water below decks, but no one top side (most of us included) knows it yet.
If, in fact, the Greeks throw off the yoke of austerity measures — higher taxes, reduced government spending, reduced personal income and, frankly, many years of hardship, in exchange for an EU bailout and eventual stability and economic health — the alter-native is that Greece leaves the EU altogether, ditches the euro as a currency, goes back to a drachma-like currency, suff ers a credit crunch and massive defl ation followed by infl ation ... and who knows what else.
And once Greece leaves the euro, how likely are Spain and Portugal and Ireland and Italy to follow? And if they leave, where does that leave the euro? Is this the begin-ning of the end of the euro? And if it is, what does that do to the European economy? What does that do to China, which holds so many euros? And how is the North American market aff ected? How is the composites industry aff ected?
We may not know specifi cally what the eff ects would be, but it’s safe to assume they would be primarily bad — the interconnectedness of global currencies guarantees that a shock wave in the euro will hit the dollar and the yen and the renminbi with equal indiff erence. On top of that, the tenuous state of the global and U.S. economies make them highly susceptible to such shocks. And just for fun, you can throw in the uncertainty introduced by the election in France, which brought the non-austere Francois Hollande to power and leaves Germany’s Angela Merkel alone as the euro’s only hardliner.
What to do? We always have hope, which in this case means we’re left wishing for the least bad outcome. We hope that the Greeks soon elect a competent, organized government. We hope that if that government decides to bail on the EU, it does so with organization and thought that minimizes the injury felt by the rest of the world. And we hope that other countries in the Greek boat don’t follow suit.
It’s a lot to ask.
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Composites: Past, Present & Future
he year was 1972, and Dr. Appel of the Budd Co., called by some the “grandfather” of sheet molding compound (SMC),
approached Sterling Detroit and asked us to design and build a system to handle SMC.
Sterling went on to design and produce the fi rst automated han-dling system that could load an SMC “charge” into a compression press and then remove a molded part at the end of the molding cycle. In fact, during the next two decades, Sterling would build a signifi cant number of SMC automation systems for the automotive and heavy-truck industries. Th ese rapid handling systems helped ensure SMC processing could keep pace with the 250,000 to 500,000 vehicle produc-tion volumes that characterized the auto industry in those days. Th e facility where it all began was Budd Co.’s Duralastic Div. plant in Carey, Ohio, and that fi rst part was a grill-opening reinforcement (GOR) panel for the Oldsmobile Toronado. It required a Class A surface, was approximately 66 inches/1,676 mm wide, weighed 12 to 15 lb (5.4 to 6.8 kg) and used between two and four plies to fi ll out the tool.
It was obvious to us from that fi rst job that this process would require special material handling. First, placement of the charge in the tool required a high level of accuracy and repeatability if qual-ity parts were to come out the other end. Second, the weight of the SMC charge had to be accurate and consistent if molds were to fi ll out properly. Th ird, because the presses used to mold SMC parts were quite large, human operators had to reach into the tool to retrieve molded parts and then position charges for the next cycle. Th is cre-ated a potential safety issue for workers. Before automated handling systems were installed, one plant mandated press shut down and placement of safety blocks before workers were permitted to reach in and remove the part and lay up the next charge. And given the size and weight of many of these parts, two workers were required to pull each piece from the tool. However, if they pulled unevenly or were not careful about how they carried and laid down the part, it could crack, which then required either rework or scrapping the large part.
At about this time, one of the largest automotive parts that was processed in SMC was the original, full-size Chevrolet Blazer roof,
Bio | James B. CannerJames B. Canner is president of Sterling Engineering & Mfg. (Royal Oak, Mich.), which designs, manufactures and installs factory automation systems. His responsi-bilities include managing projects, preparing quotes/pro-posals and guiding corporate operations. Experienced at integrating sophisticated robots and related equipment with existing machines and production processes., he has presented numerous papers before technical groups on robotics and holds a BS in engineering and business
from Wayne State University. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Automotive SMC: The wheel comes full circle
produced by General Tire Div. (Marion, Ind.) at its Ionia, Mich., plant. Th e part required a carefully weighted charge and very ac-curate placement. Given the size of the charge going into the tool and the part coming out, manual handling and unloading of the mold presented many challenges. Sterling was asked to develop an automation system for this plant, and it remained in service until the run of the Blazer ceased in 1994.
Th roughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, interest in and produc-tion of SMC parts continued to build steam. GM’s Oldsmobile Div. had multiple SMC presses and pushed to manufacture numerous parts. Buick’s Flint, Mich., plant was using injection molded SMC for its grill opening panel. Th e company was aggressively active in introducing waterjet cutting to trim the sprue and to cut out the headlight opening from demolded parts.
Th e heavy-truck industry discovered SMC in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Rockwell International began molding very large SMC parts for the entire hood and fender assembly of an International Harvester truck. Rockwell also molded many SMC parts for Ford Motor Co. at the former’s Centralia, Ill., plant, including inner and outer door panels for an early Explorer SUV. At that plant, Rockwell had installed a highly sophisticated MTS compression press (MTS Systems Corp., Eden Prairie, Minn.). Th is system incorporated nu-
merous load sensors that allowed the press to “load” the platens, an early version of what we now call parallel leveling, on its own mold to create a better part. Other suppliers like General Tire’s parent GenCorp
(Rancho Cordova, Calif.) and EaglePicher (Ashley, Ind.) also were increasing their involvement with SMC.
During this period, Sterling developed and patented several nov-el mechanisms for handling and placement of composite materials, such as SMC and glass mat thermoplastic (GMT) composite. Th ings were going gangbusters with automotive composites. GM, for ex-ample, was planning a major facility expansion in New England to manufacture parts for its “stylized” APV minivans.
And then the wheel almost came to a stop. Seemingly overnight, SMC went from good material to bad. Paint pops, caused by volatiles trapped in the material that surfaced when parts were reheated during paint bake, became a real quality issue and a nightmare for SMC sup-pliers to solve (see “Learn More,” p. 7). And environmentalists were asking how suppliers would deal with scrap from SMC molding op-erations. Th e material was not recyclable, so what was to be done with part trimmings? As Europe began to talk about end-of-life recycling eff orts, they asked how would automakers deal with SMC parts on junked cars? All the while, steel manufacturers were there to talk about their new, lighter products that were both recycled and recyclable.
Today, things are changing again.SMC suppliers solved the paint pop issue around early 2000.
During the intervening years, they have reformulated SMC. It
Fuel prices are rising once again and tough-er regulations loom, so taking mass out of parts is again on every engineer’s to-do list.
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SER I E S
Bus photo courtesy of New
Flier and Carlson Engineered C
omposites.
Photo of concert hall ceiling panel used with perm
ission by Kreysler &
Associates Inc.
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Composites: Past, Present & Future
is now available in lower densities for lighter parts and requires even less surface prep before painting. Th e recycling issue has gone away as well. Today, scrap SMC is reclaimed and made into rot-proof “deck wood” posts and other construction materials.
Aft er the 2008 automotive industry crash, a lot of old plants with steel-stamping equipment, and some of the SMC molders mentioned in this article, closed and were written off the books. Although the industry is starting to pick back up again, things are diff erent. As new plants are built and existing plants are refur-bished, composites are being considered again, but in production volumes that might be one-fi ft h of those in the 1980s and 1990s. Now it is easier for purchasing departments to see the cost savings that are possible with composites. Fuel prices are rising once again and tougher regulations loom, so taking mass out of parts is again at the top of every engineer’s to-do list. SMC and other composite material forms are starting to see new growth.
Once again it’s an exciting time to be a part of the automotive composites industry. Th e wheel has come full circle. | CT |
Read this article online | http://short.compositesworld.com/6R3DtpRL.
Read more about the SMC “paint pops” challenge online in “SMC resin and primer advances prevent paint pops” | http://short.compositesworld.com/Yv0eFO1y.
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COMPOSITES WATCH
Composites WATCH
Automakers seek carbon composite solutions for production passenger cars while
wind-energy industry competition intensifi es.
In the past two years, three major — and a growing host of minor — alliances between auto OEMs and/or tier suppliers and composite
materials/processing companies have indicated a wholesale change in automaker inclinations toward the use of composites in body and chassis structures on production passenger vehicles. Th e big three? Automaker BMW and the SGL Group (Munich and Wiesbaden, Germany, respectively) broke the ice with plans to use carbon composites in the chassis and body panels of upcoming electric commuter cars. Detroit, Mich.-based General Motors and fi ber source Teijin (Tokyo, Japan) followed up with a targeted part-per-minute process for carbon fi ber/thermoplastics (see item on p. 11), and Japan-based giants Toyota, Toray Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries (all headquartered in Tokyo) said they will produce roofs and hoods for Toyota’s Lexus as early as this year. No news was more notable, however, than a fourth partnership announcement, April 12, from Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, Mich.) and Dow Automotive Systems (Auburn Hills, Mich.), a business unit of Th e Dow Chem-ical Co. (Midland, Mich.). Ford and Dow say they will research the use of advanced carbon-fi ber composites in high-volume vehicles. No less notable is the fact that all four alliances are focused on carbon fi ber. Th e Ford news is particularly striking because in 2009, Ford offi cials told CT that unless the cost of carbon fi ber declined to $5/lb, the company would not consider the material for automo-tive structural components. Since then, the auto industry has been under increasing pressure to lightweight future vehicles, especially to compensate for battery weight in electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. Th at imperative now overshadows concerns about cost.
For its part, Ford says it is motivated to cut the weight of new cars and trucks by as much as 750 lb/340 kg by the end of the de-cade. Th e two companies have signed a joint development agree-
ment that will see researchers collaborate on several fronts, includ-ing the establishment of an economical source of automotive-grade carbon fi ber and developing component manufacturing methods for high-volume automotive applications. Ford is investigating a range of new materials, enhanced design processes and new man-ufacturing techniques that would enable automotive structures to meet increasingly stringent safety and quality standards while cutting weight. Th e joint development eff ort will leverage work that Dow already has begun through partnerships with Istanbul, Turkey-based carbon fi ber manufacturer AKSA and the U.S. De-partment of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, Tenn.). If successful, the joint eff ort could put carbon fi ber compo-nents on new Ford vehicles in the latter part of this decade as prod-uct development teams work toward meeting new fuel effi ciency standards of more than 50-mpg equivalent and extending the per-charge driving range of plug-in electric vehicles.
Th e partners say the eff ort will combine Ford’s experience in design, engineering and high-volume vehicle production with Dow Automotive’s strengths in R&D, materials science and high-volume polymer processing. “Th ere are two ways to reduce energy use in vehicles: improving the conversion effi ciency of fuels to motion and reducing the amount of work that powertrains need to do,” says Paul Mascarenas, Ford chief technical offi cer and VP of research and innovation. “Ford is tackling the conversion problem primar-ily through downsizing engines with EcoBoost and electrifi cation, while mass reduction and improved aerodynamics are keys to re-ducing the workload.”
Says Florian Schattenmann, Dow Automotive’s R&D director, “Th is partnership with Ford on carbon fi ber composites is a logi-cal next step to progress already achieved through the use of light-weight, high-strength polymers and structural bonding technology.”
Ford, Dow join forces to research carbon composites for PRODUCTION AUTOS
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BIZ BRIEF
At an April 18 symposium on structural reinforcement, SGL Group – The Carbon Co. (Meitingen, Germany) recognized the winners of its ideas com-petition, conceived to generate innovative applications for the company’s new CARBOCRETE carbon fi ber/concrete composite material. The company claims the material makes structures as strong as, and as much as to 75 percent lighter than, steel-reinforced concrete, and has a longer ser-vice life. Part of the “Germany – Land of Ideas” initiative, the competition
attracted more than 300 ideas in January and February. From these, a jury se-lected the six best ideas and then named a single winner and a runner-up. The fi rst prize of €6,000 ($7,937) went to the Leipzig, Germany, design team for its sensuously curved, plantable “Carbocrete Balcony,” and second prize and a special design award totaling €3,500 ($4,630) were given to Vinzenz Maria Hoppe from Ibbenbüren, Germany, for his “Küstenschutzhunde” coastal pro-tection anchor made from carbon concrete.
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Teijin opens Detroit tech center for AUTOMOTIVE carbon/thermoplastic process
Teijin Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) announced that its Teijin Composites Application Center (TCAC), a technical center that develops automotive and other industrial applications of carbon fi ber-reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) products, opened on April 1 in Auburn Hills, Mich., near Detroit. Auburn Hills and the State of Michigan both off ered tax incentives to attract the TCAC, which occupies a formerly vacant facility, say local media reports.
Th e TCAC is part of Teijin Advanced Composites America Inc. (TACA, Auburn Hills), a com-pany Teijin established in De-cember 2011 to conduct mar-keting and develop applications for CFRTP composite products. TACA is a wholly owned sub-sidiary of Teijin Holdings USA Inc., the Teijin Group’s holding company in the U.S.
Teijin’s CFRTP composite business is centered on its in-novative technology for high-volume production of CFRTP components with cycle times
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of less than a minute, a breakthrough that overcomes one of the biggest challenges for proponents of composites in the automo-tive industry and represents a long stride toward the increasing use of carbon-fi ber composites in automobiles and other structural products. Teijin signed an agreement with General Motors (GM, Detroit, Mich.) in December 2011 to codevelop advanced carbon-fi ber composite technologies for potential high-volume use in GM cars, trucks and crossover vehicles.
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COMPOSITES WATCH
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Wind turbine manufacturer Gamesa (Zamudio, Vizcaya, Spain) has launched a new wind turbine, the G114-2.0 MW Class IIIA,
designed to optimize energy generation from low-wind sites. Th e turbine can be purchased with any of fi ve diff erent rotors (80m, 87m, 90m, 97m and 114m, or 262 ft , 285 ft , 295 ft , 318 ft and 374 ft in diameter) and various tower heights. Th is fl exibility is said to make the turbine ideal for any type of site, with availability
levels exceeding 98 percent. Th e unit’s 2.0 MW capacity and its maximum rotor diameter of 114m/374 ft , with a swept area of 10,207m2/109,867 ft 2, can increase the turbine’s annual energy output by 20 percent over its predecessor, Gamesa’s G97-2.0 MW turbine. Its blades each span 55.5m/182 ft and have aerodynamic features, reportedly developed using state-of-the-art technolo-gies, that maximize the blades’ wind capture yet reduce their noise output levels.
Big WIND BLADES: Still getting bigger
ENER
GY
Gamesa’s target markets include In-dia, Brazil, China (high-consumption provinces near Beijing and Shanghai) and low-wind sites in Europe and the U.S. Th e company says it will begin manufactur-ing prototypes of the G114-2.0 MW in the third quarter of 2013, and turbines will hit the market by the end of the same year.
Also in the news, LM Wind Power (Kolding, Denmark) says that on March 19 its new 73.5m/241-ft long blades be-came the fi rst blades larger than 70m/230 ft to be installed when power provider Alstom (Levallois-Perret Cedex, France) inaugurated the largest off shore wind tur-bine in the world at Carnet (see photo), in the Loire-Atlantique region of France. Th e composite blades were developed spe-cifi cally for Alstom’s Haliade 150-6MW wind turbine as a result of a collaboration between the two companies to boost en-ergy capture while keeping turbine loads down. Th e blade’s design had already been through several rounds of testing before the fi rst three commercial blades were in-stalled on the turbine in France.
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In the U.S., the wind energy industry remains in turmoil about its prospects because the U.S.
Congress has not yet authorized an extension beyond 2012 of the production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy. Th e wind industry’s demand for glass and carbon fi ber, polyester and epoxy resin and core materials required to make the massive blade structures for turbine rotors has become a composites industry staple, world-wide, but in the U.S. it is not a stable market for many composite material suppliers. With the PTC fi rmly in place for the past three years, the composites industry has found in wind energy a wind-fall, having captured a signifi cant piece of a reported $15 billion in annual private investment funds. In April of this year, however, wind energy news outlets were inundated with reports of slashed profi t estimates, pre-emptive layoff s, construction postponements and the like as Congress stalled decisive action on the PTC.
Th e American Wind Energy Assn. (AWEA, Washington, D.C.) has led a wide-ranging campaign, joined by many others, to encourage not just an extension, but another multiyear exten-sion. Th e PTC was last extended through Dec. 31, 2012, by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, more commonly known as the Obama stimulus package. Wind indus-try growth since that extension — signifi cantly greater than in previous years when wind proponents had to make do with yearly PTC extensions, oft en in the 11th hour — has become the wind industry’s best argument for a multiyear commitment. Figures recorded by the AWEA indicate that the wind industry’s average annual growth rate from 2009-2011 was 35 percent.
Two bills are currently under consideration. Th e word from Washington is that representatives from both political parties ex-pressed support for some form of extension at an April 26 House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing. However, the subcom-mittee, charged with considering reform of the U.S. tax code, is known to be considering a “phase down” of the PTC as part of any extension approval. At CT press time, however, President Obama strongly urged the U.S. Congress to extend the PTC as well as the Section 48C clean energy investment tax credit (ITC) as part of comprehensive bipartisan economic development initiative. Wind project developers can choose to receive the 30 percent investment tax credit instead of the PTC. For projects placed in service before 2013, and when construction for the project began before the end of 2011, developers can claim the ITC as a cash payment from the Department of the Treasury. A diff erent fed-eral incentive, the small wind investment tax credit, is available through Dec. 31, 2016, for smaller turbines used to power indi-vidual homes or businesses.
Under federal law, the PTC provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour for the fi rst 10 years of electricity pro-duction from utility-scale turbines. Th is incentive was created un-der the Energy Policy Act of 1992. A recent AWEA study predicts that if the PTC is allowed to expire on Dec. 31, 2012, as many as 37,000 jobs could be lost.
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PTC — and the U.S. WIND INDUSTRY — still in limboEN
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COMPOSITES WATCH
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U.S. Congressional styrene hearings highlight composites industry inputTwo executives from American Composites Manufacturers Assn. (ACMA, Arlington, Va.) member companies warned the U.S. Congress on April 25 that small manufacturing concerns across the U.S. — and hundreds of thousands of jobs — could be at risk unless the
federal government “restores its reliance on credible science in the risk assessment process” and reverses the listing of the industrial chemical styrene as a “reasonably anticipated” carcinogen in the National Toxi-cology Program’s (NTP) 2011 Report on Carcinogens (RoC).
John Barker, environmental health and safety manager for pultrusion specialist Strongwell Corp. (Bristol, Va.), spoke at a joint hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Subcom-mittee on Investigations and Oversight, and the House Committee on Small Busi-ness’ Subcommittee on Healthcare and Technology. “Th e listing of styrene in the RoC is of signifi cant concern,” he noted. “For one thing, the idea of ‘reasonably an-ticipated’ has caused great confusion for our employees, their families and mem-bers of the community. People are believ-ing the fl awed science used in the assess-ment of styrene and it makes it diffi cult to maintain an open and fair relationship with the community.”
Composites NEWS
FORMAX (Leicester, U.K.) announced that Nic Prentice is now technical sales man-ager. He will be based at the company’s Leicester facility and will be responsible for the sales and processing functions. With 17 years of experience in the composites indus-try, Prentice previously worked as a process engineer for Richmond Aerovac (now Umeco ProcessMaterials) and held the position of technical consultant at Harveys Composites, the largest distributor of composite materi-als in South Africa, among other positions. Prentice’s specialties include resin infu-sion technology, vacuum-bag processing, RTM, VARTM and RTM Lite … Lennart Hagelqvist is the new CEO of DIAB Group (Laholm, Sweden), replacing Anders Pauls-son. Hagelqvist is currently located at Per-storp, Sweden, where he has been an execu-tive VP since 2007 and was previously also executive VP of operations. He has broad experience in both production- and market-oriented international operations.
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Also testifying at the hearing were NTP director Linda Birnbaum, who defended the RoC listing process, and styrene industry toxicol-ogist Jim Bus. Bus spoke on behalf of the Styrene Information and Research Center (SIRC), of which his employer (Th e Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich.) is a member. He said, “A thorough assessment of the RoC process is needed, ideally through a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) review,” and added that the “current process lacks explicit criteria to ensure consistency and transparency. NTP fails to use many scientifi c best practices, does not meet minimum stan-dards of peer review and, going forward, has reduced transparency by not providing written responses to public comments.”
Bonnie Webster, VP of Monroe Industries in Avon, N.Y., de-plored the listing’s negative impact on access to liability coverage. “Currently there is only one company that will insure us,” she de-clared. “Should we be dropped by that company, like many other composites companies whose coverage has been terminated by their long-term carriers, it will be impossible for us to continue to make an aff ordable product.” Her company makes cast polymer for custom showers and vanity tops, and she noted that it prides itself on reducing the environmental impact of its products. But she warned that those good eff orts could be undercut by the RoC clas-sifi cation. “We are very concerned that the listing of styrene could make it very diffi cult for us to stay in busi-ness,” she said. Both Barker and Webster noted that styrene has been used safely and responsibly by the composites industry for more than six decades. “Our industry is asking that Congress reform the way the federal government analyzes the risk of chemicals to make it a more transparent, inclusive and scientifi c process,” Webster summed up. Added Barker, “Our associa-tion is proposing modest, common-sense reforms ... which would dramatically im-prove the scientifi c quality of the RoC.”
CORRECTIONIn the April 2012 issue of Composites Tech-nology magazine, the feature article titled “Th ermoplastic wind blades: To be or not?” contained two typographical errors that impact the accuracy of important factual content. On p. 31, under the subhead “Not yet in Denmark,” Dr. R. T. Durai Prabha-karan of the Materials Research Div. at Risø DTU (Technical University of Denmark, Roskilde) notes in the fourth paragraph that a cooling rate possible with current large wind blade tooling does not match what is needed for thermoplastics. He is then cred-ited with saying that “cooling rates of 8°C/min to 100°C/min are required to enable the formation and degree of crystallinity necessary for semicrystalline thermoplas-tics to achieve structural properties and to prevent embrittlement, which results when crystallization occurs too slowly.” Prabha-karan alerted CT to the fact that the upper end of that temperature range has one too many zeros. Th e correct required cooling rate range is 8°C/min to 10°C/min. Th e same error is duplicated in point #2 in Table 2, on the same page. CT regrets the inaccu-racies, with apologies to Dr. Prabhakaran and all of our readers.
16
Show Coverage
A big, busy show and a big variety of new developments boded well for the industry’s future.
The 2012 edition of the JEC COMPOSITES Show, now known as JEC Europe, was held March 27-29, in Paris, France. Figures published by the JEC Group indicate that the event
attracted more exhibitors and visitors than in previous years, a testi-mony to the improving health of the composites industry.
If JEC 2011 was notable for its emphasis on composites in au-tomotive applications, JEC 2012 was equally notable for its lack of a single overriding theme or dominant trend. Th at’s not to suggest, however, that this annual event was not good. It was, in fact, very good — busy, active and positive.
MINITRENDS MAKE THEIR MARKS
Th ere were, however, some indications of trends the future might off er. Th ere was some discussion, for example, about demand for compressed natural gas (CNG) pressure vessels triggered by histor-ically low natural gas prices (see photo below) , and some talk was stirred by announcements of carbon fi ber capacity expansions. Also notable was a focus in many exhibits on high-speed manufacturing
strategies, in particular, for automotive appli-cations. For example, Bond-Laminates’ (Brilon, Germany) Tepex thermo-plastic sheet is being used in several automotive applications, including an Audi A8 front-end carrier. Bond-Laminates is deeply involved in part-nerships to develop fast hybrid molding methods that can meet auto industry part-per-minute expectations. Likewise, Jacob Plastics GmbH (Wilhelmsdorf, Germany) showed videos of two
hybrid molding methods for automotive parts, such as seats.Th e innovative Fraunhofer ICT (Pfi nztal, Germany) research
group showed an automated thermoplastic tape placement process combined with injection molding. Many supplier companies of-fered materials for fast-cycle automotive manufacturing, including Momentive Performance Material’s (Columbus, Ohio) EPIKOTE epoxy and Huntsman Advanced Materials’ (Th e Woodlands, Texas) Araldite for high-speed RTM.
Magna Exteriors and Interiors (Grabill, Ind.) and Zoltek Com-panies Inc. (St. Louis, Mo.) announced a global collaborative part-nership to develop low-cost carbon fi ber sheet molding compounds (SMC) for the automotive and commercial truck markets.
Umeco (Heanor, Derbyshire, U.K.) revealed at the show that it is in the process of developing an automated manufacturing system for the high-volume production of automotive structures and com-ponents, using new “snap cure” prepregs. But the big news came aft er the show closed, when U.S.-based Cytec Industries (Piedmont, S.C.) announced in mid-April that it will purchase Umeco, includ-ing its U.K.- and U.S.-based Advanced Composites Group subsid-iaries. (See “Learn More,” p. 17)
REBRANDING PROGRAMS UNLEASHED
Additional highlights from the show included rebranding eff orts. Technical Fibre Products (Kendal, U.K. and Schenectady, N.Y.) announced that it will now operate under the name TFP. In the wake of the company’s 25-year anniversary, the new TFP aims to build on its reputation for developing and producing nonwoven veils and mats and partnering with customers to develop custom-ized solutions to meet an array of technical challenges.
Th e Axson Group (Cergy, France) followed up its rebranding campaign, which began when it acquired two companies in late 2011, by announcing that André Genton, previously with Huntsman, will be chief operating offi cer of the company. Genton will oversee Axson’s ambitious expansion plans, which include new plants worldwide.
S-glass specialist AGY (Aiken, S.C.) revealed that it has signed a long-term agreement with CTG/Taishan Fiberglass (Shandong Province, China) to produce AGY’s trademarked S-1 HM high-per-formance glass rovings under license for wind turbine applications in China. Th e glass should be in production by the third quarter of this year, reports AGY president Drew Walker and Zhiyao Tang, chairman and president of CTG/Taishan Fiberglass.
Green technologies, including natural fi ber materials at many exhibits, and greater environmental responsibility were also at the forefront. DSM Composite Resins (Schaffh ausen, Switzerland and Zwolle, Th e Netherlands), for example, held a joint press conference with partner AkzoNobel (Amersfoort, Th e Netherlands) to unveil the new BluCure brand, an umbrella name for cobalt-free resin cur-ing technology, including preaccelerated resins and cobalt-free ac-celerators. DSM is producing new resins with the cobalt-free tech-nology, and a new “BluCure” seal will distinguish products made by fabricators with the new materials.
Owens Corning Composite Materials (Toledo, Ohio) claimed en-vironmental sustainability as a core value, describing new plants that
REPORTJEC Europe2012
Sample compressed natural gas (CNG) pressure vessels, like this one, could be found at a variety of stands at the show. Production vehicles don’t appear to be an immediate target of engines fueled by CNG, but fl eet vehicles, HPC was told, are a distinct possibility.
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are coming online in Russia and Mexico and new sustainable prod-ucts, including a formaldehyde-free binder for glass mats used in car-pet; energy-saving production improvements; and a new food-grade reinforcement for use in consumer products — a fi rst for the industry.
Momentive announced the start-up of its Transportation Re-search and Application Center (TRAC) in Duisburg, Germany. TRAC researchers will develop and test custom lightweight struc-tural composite solutions for clients in the automotive, aerospace and mass transportation markets. Th e lab will house a state-of-the art dosing/injection unit and a press from Cannon SpA (Borromeo, Italy) that are specifi cally engineered for the rapid production of small-batch epoxy composite test components in conformity to a wide array of process and customer conditions.
Rhodia (Lyon, France) emphasized two partnerships that are fo-cused on the use of the company’s Evolite polyamide (PA) composite product. Th e fi rst partnership, with Faurecia, centers on the Light-weight Hybrid Composite Structures (LYCOS) project in Europe, which is working to develop lightweight structures for automotive applications. Faurecia is using Evolite to design and develop a stamped and over-molded seat cushion structural component to replace metal. Th e other partnership is with France-based Finot Group to develop a lightweight 4.3m/14.1-ft sailboat called Albatros. Th e hull, made with Evolite, con-sists of three thermoformed sections. Th e three sections are bonded together to pro-duce a hull that is light, structurally rigid, has good impact resistance and is recycla-ble. Finot is looking for 40 percent weight savings with the project, which should be complete sometime in the summer. | CT |
See more detailed coverage of several new technologies mentioned here in our special section devoted to “New Products” introduced at JEC Europe, on p. 39.
compositesworld.com
Read a much expanded version of this article online | http://short.compositesworld.com/UuEx0kqM.
Read more about Cytec’s acquisition of Umeco | http://short.compositesworld.com/FobzBaHb.
Mexico and new sustainable prod-
Rhodia (Lyon, France) unveiled, in partnership with France-based Finot Group, a lightweight 4.3m/14.1-ft sailboat called Albatros. The impact-resistant and recyclable hull is assembled from three thermoformed composite sections
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Although the 54.65m/179 long carbon/glass fi ber blades on Vestas’
V112-3.0 MW turbine are the same width as the company’s 44m/144-ft
blades, they sweep an area that is 55 percent larger to deliver considerably
higher energy output.
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rom its inception, the wind energy industry has had to fi ght to compete with other forms of electric power generation. Wind energy producers not only face that battle, but also wage
war against each other for a competitive share in the wind market. Both battles boil down to a need to improve the economics of wind energy through increased energy capture. Th is has prompted a well-documented growth spurt in the size of turbines and rotor blades for land-based and off shore systems (see “Learn More,” p. 22). Off shore turbines are moving quickly from 3 MW to next-gener-ation turbines rated at 5 MW and larger, on which blade lengths for both on- and off shore systems regularly exceed 45m/148 ft . As blades grow longer, the idea of converting structural areas of the blade from E-glass to signifi cantly stiff er and lighter carbon fi ber begins to make sense, despite the latter’s greater upfront cost.
Wind Turbine Blades:
The problem: Produce wind power at a more
competitive price. The answer? For some,
it’s a more expensive reinforcement.
Source | Vestas Wind Systems A/S
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Carbon fi ber already has proven to be an enabling technology for turbine manufacturers Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Aarhus, Den-mark) and Gamesa Technology Corp. (Zamudio, Vizcaya, Spain). Both companies embraced carbon fi ber years ago, using it in select structural parts of their blades and taking advantage of the lighter weight blades throughout the turbine system. Lighter blades require less robust turbine and tower components, so the cascading cost savings justify the additional cost of carbon. “Vestas and Gamesa designed their turbines around the use of carbon fi ber and, by virtue of that, the whole system cost is less than a system with an all glass-fi ber blade,” confi rms Dr. Philip L. Schell, executive VP of wind en-ergy at carbon fi ber manufacturer Zoltek Corp. (St. Louis, Mo.).
And that is before the increase in turbine effi ciency that addition-al length enables. For example, the switch to carbon fi ber enabled Vestas, initially, to add 5m/16 ft in blade length without any addi-tional weight gain. Th e Vestas V112-3MW turbine is designed for low- and medium-wind areas and sports three 54.6m/179-ft blades. Th ese blades have the same width as the company’s 44m/144-ft blades, but they sweep an area that is 55 percent larger. Th e result is considerably higher energy output.
More recently, GE Energy (Greenville, S.C.) joined the fray, specifying carbon fi ber in its next-generation wind blades, includ-ing the 48.7m/160-ft blades for its 1.6-100 turbine. Yet, speaking at CompositeWorld’s 2011 Carbon Fiber conference in Washington D.C., Nirav Patel, senior lead engineer of GE Energy-Manufactur-ing Technology, issued a warning that carbon fi ber cost and supply
concerns could be showstoppers to further use of carbon fi ber in GE applications. Patel also called for increased automation and im-provements in manufacturing processes (see “Learn More”).
Notably, it may be GE’s use of carbon fi ber to increase blade length on its 1.6-MW system that will ultimately push more wind energy companies to embrace carbon fi ber. “GE’s decision to put a 100m [328-ft ] diameter rotor on a 1.6-MW turbine has captured the attention of a lot of companies in the industry,” says Dr. Kyle Wet-zel, president, Wetzel Engineering (Lawrence, Kan.), which designs wind turbines and rotors. “As a result, we are being approached by a number of companies that want to similarly upsize their machines.”
A CARBON BACKBONE
Retrofi tting existing turbine designs with longer blades that incor-porate carbon has become a shortcut to marketability. “It’s always best to do a system-level design — treating the rotor, the turbine, and the tower as one system — but the reality is that the energy market is so competitive and everyone is so worried about what their competitors are doing, that they oft en don’t have time to do a system-level design,” explains Wetzel. “So, if a company decides to go to an extremely large blade on an existing system, then carbon fi ber becomes an enabling technology by allowing for increased blade length without increased weight.”
Currently, carbon fi ber is used primarily in the spar, or structural element, of wind blades longer than 45m/148 ft , both for land-based and off shore systems. Th e higher stiff ness and lower density of
Glass vs. Carbon Fiber
Vestas has installed more than 1,300 V90-3.0 MW
turbines on- and offshore around the world. The unit’s
44m/144-ft slim blades incorporate a glass fi ber/
carbon fi ber spar with glass fi ber airfoil shells.
Work in Progress
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“In a 100m blade, the weights get so high that we are starting to investigate using carbon in the skins of the blade for added weight reduction,” says Wetzel. In a conventional, land-based blade design, however, the spar cap is the only area where Wetzel would recom-mend CF, but Schell notes that one company is using a hybrid glass/carbon reinforcement in the root section of the blade.
“In some very specialized blades, we’ve incorporated carbon in the trailing edge in an eff ort to tune some of the natural frequencies of the blade,” says Wetzel. “And carbon could come into play in aeroelastic tailoring,” he adds, noting that the idea is to build a small amount of twistability into the load response of a blade with asymmetric fi ber layup in the blade skin to shape the power curve and reduce loads. “It’s a concept that’s been around for about 10 years, but I think it’s going to soon fi nd its way into some commercial wind blades — very large blades.”
CF allows a thinner blade profi le while producing stiff er, lighter blades. Th e rough rule of thumb for weight reduction, off ers Schell, is at least 20 percent weight savings when moving from an all-glass blade to one with a carbon fi ber-reinforced spar cap. Off shore wind systems — where the smallest turbines are rated at 3 MW — will especially benefi t from the characteristics of carbon.
“Assuming that off shore continues in its positive direction and costs remain under control, I wouldn’t be surprised to see 8-MW to 10-MW turbines with 80m to 100m [263-ft to 328-ft ] long blades in the next three to fi ve years,” says Schell.
“A 100m blade made entirely out of glass fi ber could weigh up to 50 metric tonnes [110,231 lb],” he notes. “When you consider achiev-ing a 20 to 30 percent weight savings by incorporating carbon fi ber, that’s a weight savings of 15 metric tonnes [33,069 lb]. Multiply that by three and it can make a signifi cant diff erence,” Schell stresses.
Not everyone is sold on carbon fi ber in wind blades. Many blade manufacturers
have decades of experience working with glass fi ber and continue to resist in-
corporating carbon fi ber into their blade designs. Some have chosen to partner
with materials suppliers to develop new chemistries with enhanced fi llers,
sizing and coupling agents or trade up from E-glass to specialty high-strength
(S-glass) fi ber. For instance, AGY (Aiken, S.C.) offers S-1 HM glass rovings, which
offer a tensile modulus of 90 GPa (compared to E-glass at 70 to 75 GPa) and
are targeted for use in spar caps, leading and trailing edges and blade roots.
Under a recently announced agreement, S-1 HM rovings will be produced and
marketed to the Asian-Pacifi c and African markets by CTG/Taishan Fiberglass
(Shandong Province, China). AGY will focus on markets in the U.S. and Europe.
However, enhanced manufacturing processes with increased automation,
studies of aerodynamic and load design, and more integrated designs of
turbines and rotors also are helping companies like LM Wind Power (Kolding,
Denmark) and Siemens Wind Power (Erlangen, Germany) continue their reliance
on E-glass — even at extreme blade lengths.
LM Wind Power’s 73.5m/240-ft glass-fi ber/polyester blades were developed
in partnership with Alstom (Levallois-Perret, France) and were recently installed
on Alstom’s Haliade 150-6MW wind turbine in Carnet, France. “Our technology
enables us to design and manufacture relatively lighter glass fi ber and polyester
blades for the length,” says Ian Telford, VP sales and marketing, LM Wind
Power. He also stresses the company’s proven ability to handle the industrializa-
tion of such blades.
The 73.5m blade reportedly weighs in at 20 metric tonnes (44,092 lb), but
it has the same 3.2m/11-ft diameter blade root as the company’s previous
61.5m/202-ft long blade. This is possible because it features LM Wind Power’s
SuperRoot design, which is more compact yet reportedly stronger, allowing LM
to fi t 35 to 40 percent more attachment bolts into the same root diameter. This
enables the root to support blades that are up to 20 percent longer without an
increase in root diameter.
COMPETITION FOR CARBON FIBER IN LONGER BLADES
The French government reportedly plans to install 3 GW of wind turbine
power off French shores by 2015. Alstom and LM Wind Power intend
to establish a blade manufacturing plant in Cherbourg, France, with the
capacity to produce up to 100 sets of 73.5m blades per year. Production is
expected to begin in 2016.
“Glass suppliers will continue to develop their product,” stresses Gary
Kanaby, director of sales for Wind Energy, Molded Fiber Glass Cos. (MFG;
Ashtabula, Ohio), who also mentions basalt fi ber among the possibilities
for alternative fi ber reinforcements. When compared to E-glass, high-qual-
ity basalt continuous rovings, which are produced by processing volcanic
rock, are reportedly 15 to 20 percent higher in tensile strength, 10 to 15
percent higher in tensile modulus and 8 to 10 percent lighter.
Not only will fi ber selection play a role in adding strength and reducing
weight in blades longer than 40m/130 ft, but resin development will also
be critical, says Kanaby. “Urethanes are coming into play, as well as vinyl
ester resins that incorporate nanotechnology,” he says.
Bayer MaterialScience LLC (Pittsburgh, Pa.) recently introduced a
new class of nano-enhanced Baydur polyurethane systems, which, when
compared to systems based on epoxy and vinyl ester, reportedly offer blade
molders low VOC emissions, faster infusion time and greater interlaminar
fracture toughness. “Incorporation of a small amount of multiwalled car-
bon nanotubes improves the fracture of both polyurethane and the epoxy
composites by as much as 48 percent,” says Dr. Usama Younes, a Bayer
principal scientist. “The addition of carbon nanotubes is a viable option
to improve the strength of wind turbine blades.” The Baydur polyurethane
system was the result of a two-part U.S. Department of Energy grant for
the development of new, stronger composite materials for wind blades and
was a collaborative effort by MFG and Case Western Reserve University
(Cleveland, Ohio).
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GLASS-TO-CARBON CHALLENGES
Replacing E-glass with carbon fi ber brings new processing chal-lenges as well. Carbon has a relatively low damage tolerance, and its compressive strength is greatly aff ected by fi ber alignment. Further, molders encounter greater diffi culty in achieving fi ber wetout during vacuum infusion; given this, wind blade manufacturers have tended to use more expensive prepreg products.
“We’ve seen signifi cant improvement in the last few years re-garding the compressive strength of carbon prepreg materials in the fi ber direction, and a lot of that has come from improved manufac-turing and prepreg processes,” says Wetzel. “However, great strides still need to be made in that area with fi ber alignment,” he adds.
“Carbon requires perfect fi ber alignment, and must be cured quickly,” explains Manfred Schoefl inger, business development manager for wind energy at Hexcel (Stamford, Conn.), which has
been supplying composite materials for wind blades for more than 20 years. Even small misalignments can lead to a signifi cant reduc-tion of compressive and fatigue strength.
Hexcel’s trademarked HexPly unidirectional (UD) carbon fi -ber prepregs feature a patented grid technology that assists in re-moving air during the vacuum-bag processing of thick carbon UD laminates. A low void content improves mechanical performance by ensuring that the carbon fi ber properties are translated to the lami-nate. Grid technology is incorporated into the company’s HexPly M19G carbon fi ber UD prepreg, which cures 15 to 20 percent faster than Hexcel’s standard-cure product. Less energy is required to cure M19G, which is suitable for blade shells, spars and root ends.
Automatic ply placement also improves quality. Generally, spar caps may require 45 to 50 plies of prepreg, but as the blade size grows, structures may require 100 plies or more. “Trying to lay 80
Unidirectional carbon fi ber is typically used in the spar caps of large wind
blades. Shown here is the wind blade design used Gamesa’s G87 2.0-MW
turbine with 42.5-m/140-ft blade length and the G90 2.0-MW with
44m/144-ft blades. The blade design incorporates pre-impregnated epoxy
glass fi ber and carbon fi ber.
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0 1 2 3 4
Tens
ile S
tres
s (M
Pa)
Tensile Strain (%)
S-Glass
E-GlassAramid
IM Carbon
HS Carbon
0 1 2 3 4
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Com
pres
ive
Stre
ss (M
Pa)
Compressive Strain (%)
S-Glass
E-Glass
Aramid
IM Carbon
HS Carbon
Intermediate-modulus carbon fi ber offers wind blade manufacturers
several attractive advantages over E-glass. Among them are greater specifi c
strength, specifi c modulus and fatigue resistance (assuming straight fi bers),
and (charted here) greater tensile and compressive ultimate stress. Note,
however, that the more moderately priced S-glass performs nearly as well as
carbon fi ber in ultimate tensile and compressive stress but differs signifi cantly
in terms of tensile and compressive strain.
Gamesa: G87 and G90 Blade Design
LE Band
Structural Carbon UD Laminate
Sandwich-Foam PVC Glass TX
Sandwich-Foam PVC Glass TX
Adhesive
Structural Carbon UD Laminate
Gel-coat
Adhesive
Adhesive
Source: Sandia National Laboratories
Source: Gamesa Technology Corp. & Sandia National Laboratories
Root Joint Upper Shell
SparLower Shell
Adhesive
Sandwich-Foam PMI Glass BX
Work in Progress
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plies of prepreg, one on top of the other, in a spar cap tool that’s 180 to 200 ft [36.6 to 61m] long and 600 mm [23.6 inches] wide, would be a challenge to anyone” says Schell. Which is why Zoltek, through its subsidiary Entec Composite Machines (Lake City, Utah), off ers a fi ber alignment system specifi cally designed to mount onto a spar cap tool. “Th e machine automatically deposits each ply of prepreg into the tool in the proper location with the right tension and align-ment,” explains Schell.
“Fabric is more challenging,” he adds. “We’re looking into ways of applying fabric into a tool using a similar device, and we expect to introduce that within 2012.” In general, fabric, which does not have the tack of prepreg, requires a slightly diff erent approach and machine technology.
Another area in need of improvement, in Wetzel’s opinion, is fracture toughness. “Th e fracture toughness mostly relates to the resins that are being used and the resin/fi ber interactions, but it very strongly aff ects the fatigue life of the parts and delamination of the layers,” he explains. “We’re looking for nearly a doubling in fracture toughness from what we’re typically seeing right now.”
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
Because of the sheer quantity of standard-modulus carbon fi ber required for these increasingly large wind blades, blade manufac-turers are likely to eclipse aerospace manufacturers in carbon fi ber consumption during the next 10 years. Chris Red, owner and presi-dent of Composites Forecasts and Consulting (Gilbert, Ariz.), has predicted that by 2019, the world will produce 27,000 wind turbines and 82,000 blades, and carbon fi ber will comprise 6 percent of all composites in each blade (see “Learn More, below”).
According to Patel, GE plans to use 24K or greater standard-modulus carbon fi ber to form the primary structures of 1,600 next-generation 48.7m/160-ft blades. He also claims that in 2012 alone, GE Energy expects to consume about 3,000 metric tonnes (about 6.6 million lb) of carbon fi ber. Th e concern voiced by GE and others looking to add carbon fi ber to blade designs is Will there be a reliable supply of large-tow, standard-modulus fi ber as demand ramps up?
“Consistency in terms of fi ber supply, capacity and price is cer-tainly a concern for the industry,” says Schoefl inger, but he’s optimis-
Read this article online | http://short.compositesworld.com/QLiMPvJ1. Read more about Dr. Nirav Patel’s views on this subject | “What is carbon fi ber’s place in wind energy systems?” | CT February 2012 (p. 5) | http://short.compositesworld.com/tiRTetgL.
Read more about carbon fi ber in the wind energy market in the following:
“Carbon fi ber market: Cautious optimism” | HPC March 2011 (p. 54) | http://short.compositesworld.com/TP0XXASa.
“Carbon fi ber market: Gathering momentum” | HPC March 2012 (p. 42) | http://short.compositesworld.com/BuE63eRz.
Read more about the advantages of wind turbine and blade size increases in “Wind turbine blades: Big and getting bigger” | CT June 2008 (p. 42) | http://short.compositesworld.com/jlHKXaS2.
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A regular CT freelancer, Karen Wood previously served as the managing editor of Injection Molding Magazine (Denver, Colo.). [email protected]
tic: “Th ere will be two carbon fi ber markets emerging — one focusing on aerospace and one focusing on industrial applications.”
Schell agrees, noting, “I think it’s more a problem of the past.” Zoltek, in fact, has thrown all its cards into the industrial sector, building its business around supplying standard-modulus carbon fi ber products (rovings, prepregs and fabrics) to not only the wind energy industry but the automotive industry as well. Zoltek current-ly has 20,000 metric tonnes (about 44.1 million lb) of carbon fi ber installed in wind turbine blades worldwide.
“Zoltek has ample supply capacity, with the ability to increase and ramp up that capacity very quickly as demand rises,” Schell claims, but he acknowledges that fears about inadequate supply have, in the past, been warranted. “Ample carbon supply is certainly a concern when you switch to a less readily available product,” he adds, “but I think it’s much less of an issue today.” Schell says Zoltek now has >13,000 metric tonnes (about 28.6 million lb) of industrial-grade carbon fi ber capacity with plans to “dramatically” increase capacity over the next fi ve years, mainly in support of wind energy.
Wetzel, on the other hand, believes the days of supply shortages and price volatility are not a thing of the past. “We have a lot more capacity in carbon supply than we did fi ve or six years ago, but we also have a worldwide recession suppressing the demand for carbon fi ber,” he says. “And once aerospace takes off signifi cantly and wind, and on top of that off shore, I think we can expect a signifi cant increase in demand for carbon fi ber, and I doubt suppliers will be ready for it,” he warns. He speculates, however, that it may be more of a problem for the high-quality, high-modulus (aerospace-grade) products used in aircraft .
Supply concerns and the high price of carbon fi ber, which costs 10 to 20 times as much as E-glass, will likely continue to make some manufacturers hesitate before designing a new blade with CF. “One of our customers has designed a blade in two options,” says Gary Kanaby, director of sales for wind energy, Molded Fiber Glass Cos. (MFG, Ashtabula, Ohio). “It can be built with or without carbon.”
LM Wind Power (Kolding, Denmark) is one of several blade-makers that is fi nding ways around the use of carbon in large blades. Th e company recently installed 73.5m/240-ft glass-fi ber/polyester blades on a 6-MW turbine off the coast of France (see “Competition for carbon fi ber in wind blades,” p. 20).
Competition in the global wind energy market is fi erce, however, especially in China, where dozens of companies are fi ghting for a piece of the world’s leading wind market. Th ose players will gravi-tate to materials and processes that can off er them a competitive edge. Kanaby believes more and more carbon will be used in next-generation wind blades. However, he says the factor that will most dictate the use of carbon in a turbine rotor will be the spreadsheet. “It doesn’t really matter what it’s made out of when it’s spinning,” he says. “It just needs to make money.” | CT |
Work in Progress
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There’s welcome news for those who pultrude fi ber-glass window profi les and lineals. A statistical review and forecast produced by the American Architectural
Manufacturers Assn. (AAMA) predicts strong growth for these components in the coming years. Th e report comes on the heels of a decade-long roller coaster ride with unprec-edented ups and downs for manufacturers of windows, doors and other architectural elements. In 2005, the total number of all types of window units shipped in the U.S. reached a new high of 70.5 million, but by 2009 that number had declined 45 percent to 38.9 million units (see “Shipments of prime windows” chart, p. 25). Th e good news is that the window market appears to be on the rebound, with 42.7 million units shipped in 2011 and projected shipments of more than 48 million windows this year. Of the 42.7 million windows shipped last year, vinyl windows accounted for 29.4 million units, or about 69 percent of the market. Wood windows, including vinyl-clad and metal-clad wood (20 percent), and aluminum (6 percent) were the second and third most-shipped windows. Fiberglass window profi les and frames, by comparison, captured a little more than 3 percent of the total market share, at 1.2 million units. However, annual ship-ments of fi berglass windows are forecast to more than doublethose recorded in 2009, reaching 2.6 million units per annum during 2014.
Th e growth in the use of pultruded fi berglass window components will be driven, in part, by new technology and an increasing demand in the market for windows that are capable of better performance. Pultruded fi berglass win-dows off er greater dimensional stability, impact resistance, strength and color fastness than the vinyl and wood win-dows that still dominate the residential construction mar-ket. But the dramatically improved thermal performance of fi berglass windows is promising gains in once out-of-reach commercial building construction, where fi berglass win-
More thermally insulative fi berglass windows are expected to be in
demand to replace aluminum windows in older buildings. For
example, Serious Energy (Sunnyvale, Calif.) was contracted to
retrofi t two buildings on the University of Colorado campus, the
Bruce Curtis (MCOL) building (top), and Woodbury Hall (bottom),
with its line of energy-effi cient, SeriousGlass fi berglass windows.
The new windows also help deaden traffi c noise in both buildings.
RISING HIGH?Pultruded windows
New pultrudable glass fi ber/resin formulations enable window
manufacturers to break in to commercial architecture and build
market share in residential construction.
Source (both photos) | Serious Energy24
FEATURE: Architectural Pultrusions
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dows are increasingly seen as an attractive and viable alternative to aluminum windows.
Th e low thermal conductivity of fi berglass permits the design of windows with U values (the measure of thermal transmittance) two to three times better than those of their aluminum coun-terparts. Further, the manufacture of fi berglass consumes 57 times less energy than the manufac-ture of aluminum from bauxite, a selling point for companies and customers that want to establish their “green” credentials. With the cost of energy generally on the rise over the past decade, building architects and owners are realizing now that they can recoup the cost of replacing aluminum windows with fi berglass windows quite quickly — an awareness that is spreading with the emergence of “green” building programs in large cities, such as New York. Owner awareness and “green” initiatives have presented new opportunities for purveyors of fi berglass windows and those who pultrude the profi les and lineals.
One trailblazer in this eff ort is Serious Energy (Sunnyvale, Calif.). “Our mission is to displace aluminum with fi berglass in commercial buildings as soon as possible,” says Robert Clarke, the company’s director of marketing. A little more than two years ago, Serious Energy completed the replacement of steel and wood window frames with fi berglass frames in several buildings on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, Colo. Th e project included two three-story buildings: Woodbury Hall — one of the uni-versity’s original structures, built in the late 19th century — and the Bruce Curtis Build-ing (MCOL), a museum of natural history. At Woodbury Hall, eight large black-frame steel-and-aluminum windows were replaced, and the retrofi t at the Bruce Curtis Building involved 84 beige-colored wood-framed win-dows (see photos on opening page).
Th e replacement windows were assembled at Serious Energy’s 36,000-ft 2 (3,344m2) man-ufacturing facility in Boulder, Colo., using fi berglass profi les pultruded by Inline Fiber-glass Ltd. (Toronto, Ontario, Canada).
For a third University of Colorado proj-ect, the $63 million Visual Arts Center, Seri-ous used Inline’s family of 400 Series com-
mercial “storefront” fi berglass lineals, completed in 2009. Th e lineals used in the three buildings comprise approximately 60 per-cent E-glass rovings, polyester resin and other chemical additives. Glass mat is used as reinforcement in corner and fl ange areas.
Larson Engineering (Chicago, Ill.) was contracted to verify that the pultrusions and overall window designs comply with In-ternational Building Code (IBC) standards and ensure, among other things, that the windows can withstand wind loads up to 110 mph/177 kph. Th is is an important consideration in Boulder, be-cause its location in the foothills of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains makes it uniquely susceptible to occasional downslope winds of 80 to 100 mph (129 to 161 kmh). Th is fact presented a challenge be-cause fi berglass pultruded profi les, in general, have only 25 percent of the strength through the cross-section that they have in the axial orientation. Th is makes fi berglass profi les more prone to defl ection over long spans than aluminum or steel. Because some of the
Serious Energy’s new interior window frames in
Woodbury Hall (right) were fi nished to match the black
anodized aluminum frames they replaced, and the
interior windows in the Bruce Curtis building (inset, left)
were fi nished to match the replaced beige wood frames.
The fi berglass-framed windows solved a persistent
condensation problem at the Bruce Curtis building,
where humidity is kept at 40 percent to preserve
artifacts and art.
SHIPMENTS OF PRIME WINDOWS*(Millions of Units)
2009 2010 2011 2012F 2013F 2014F
Wood** 8.6 8.9 8.7 9.3 10.0 10.6
Aluminum 2.9 2.8 2.4 2.8 3.3 3.6
Vinyl 25.5 27.8 29.4 33.1 37.6 40.9
Fiberglass 1.2 1.4 1.5 1.8 2.2 2.6
Other 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.2
Total 38.9 41.6 42.7 48.0 54.1 58.8
*F = forecast. All fi gures taken from the 2010/2011 American Architectural Manufacturers Association/Window and Door Manufacturer’s U.S. National Statistical Review and Forecast. **Wood segment includes vinyl-clad wood and metal clad wood units.
Source (both photos) | Serious Energy
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building materials. Th e company is reportedly one of only two win-dow manufacturers in North America (the other is Architectural Fi-berglass, Cleveland, Ohio) to off er a Class B-rated glass-reinforced polyester window. According to the 2009 IBC standard, Class B windows can be installed in high-rise buildings if 10 percent or less of a building’s resulting external wall will be fi berglass. Th e Class A rating would be required if more than 10 percent of a building’s external walls will comprise fi berglass materials.
Th e Class B rating criteria require that a material must achieve a fl ame-spread index in the range of 25 to 75. Inline’s grade of polyester rated 30. Anthony Bartolini, Inline’s sales manager, re-ports that the development of the new resin was technically chal-lenging because fl ame-spread and smoke-density properties are inversely correlated — that is, a larger percentage of fl ame-retar-dant additive can better slow fl ame spread but will increase smoke density. At the same time, too much additive can adversely aff ect structural properties. Nonetheless, Bartolini says the company is confi dent the material can meet the Class A rating (25 or less) for fl ame spread with adjustments to the additives package. Th at said, window frame and sash areas on commercial buildings rarely exceed the 10 percent fi berglass limit, so the Class B rating is suf-fi cient for a host of new applications.
Another option is polyurethane (PU) resin. With two to three times the tensile strength, transverse strength and impact resistance of polyester, PU represents something of a gold standard for fi ber-glass window manufacturers that are interested in tapping advanced structural commercial applications. Its potential, however, has been blunted by a previously unmet twofold challenge: fi nding a glass/PU formulation that (1) will adhere to paint and (2) is in compliance with the IBC’s requirements for fl ame spread and smoke density for high-rise commercial buildings.
Graham Architectural Products (York, Pa.), however, claims that it recently became the fi rst company in North America to bring to market a pultruded, glass-reinforced PU window that reportedly measures up in both categories. Trade named GTh urm Windows, the product line features frames made from pultruded profi les that consist of approximately 80 percent continuous-strand glass and 20 percent PU. Graham Architectural partnered with Graham Engineering, a subsidiary that pultrudes the profi le, and Bayer MaterialScience LLC (Pittsburgh, Pa.) to develop the proprietary PU resin blend. One of the critical innovations was the development of a postprocess surface treatment technology that ensures adhesion of the paint to the profi le, an especially diffi cult challenge given the high glass content. As a result, cus-tomers can order GTh urm windows in a variety of colors that are available in Arkema Inc.’s (King of Prussia, Pa.) line of Kynar paints, which has been approved by the AAMA for use on fi ber-glass window profi les.
Jaime Marrero, Graham Engineering’s pultrusion sales man-ager, says testing of the company’s profi les to ASTM E84-12 is ongoing, but he claims that Graham’s in-house tests confi rmed that GTh urm and aluminum windows perform “equally well” and do not support ignition. Th e glass/PU windows have a U value of less than 0.18. Th e fi rst commercial installations of GTh urm windows were retrofi ts for several buildings on Bayer Materi-
windows in the buildings are as tall as 130 inches/330 cm, steel re-inforcement inserts were placed in certain sections of the profi les. Th e steel reinforcements were designed to be as thin as possible to minimize thermal transfer.
Th e fi berglass replacement windows damped sound better than the aluminum originals in all cases, and in the Bruce Curtis Build-ing, where humidity must be kept relatively high (above 40 percent) to preserve the museum artifacts, the improved thermal perfor-mance of the fi berglass windows eliminated condensation that had formed on the aluminum frames.
Notably, color matching was not an issue. The window frames and sashes in the installations at Woodbury Hall and the Bruce Curtis Building were matched successfully to the colors of the previous windows. For the sake of architectural aesthetics, some windows in the Visual Arts Center were framed in “thermally broken” aluminum (an aluminum frame with an inside layer in-sulated from the outside layer). Clarke claims, “In areas where the fiberglass and aluminum windows are side by side, people cannot tell the difference due to the precise matching of black paint and substrate patina.”
NEW FORMULATIONS COULD
RAMP UP INSTALLATIONS
Despite successes like these, applications of pultruded fi berglass windows in commercial architectural projects would be limited to low-rise commercial buildings (four stories and less) unless the fl ame and smoke characteristics and the structural properties of the polyester resin were signifi cantly upgraded. During the past decade, window manufacturers have responded to that reality by investing signifi cantly in R&D programs, and the work has borne fruit. Recently, several new materials have been commercialized that have the potential to open untapped markets for fi berglass window systems.
Inline Fiberglass, for example, has formulated a new polyester resin system with a fi re retardant that achieves a Class B rating for fl ame spread and smoke density, as governed by ASTM E84-12, the standard test for determining the surface burning characteristics of
Omniglass Ltd.’s 60,000 ft2 (55,574m2) manufacturing facility in Win-
nipeg, Manitoba, Canada, was destroyed by fi re in January of this year.
Omniglass, one of the fi rst pultruders of commercial fi berglass window
and door components in North America, was a subsidiary of Serious
Energy (Sunnyvale, Calif.). The remaining assets of the plant, including
tooling and machinery, have been auctioned and there are no plans to
rebuild the facility, according to Robert Clarke, director of marketing at
Serious Energy.
— Michael R. LeGault
FIRE DESTROYS WINDOW/DOOR PULTRUDER’S PLANT
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FEATURE: Architectural Pultrusions
alScience’s Pittsburgh campus (see photos, this page). Marrero reports that Graham Architectural has orders on the books for several other projects, including retrofi t installations at a munici-pal police building.
For its part, Inline has created a new division within the com-pany dedicated solely to the development and manufacture of pul-truded, glass-reinforced PU windows. Th e company says it will launch its fi rst PU product this spring. Company president Bernard Rokicki says Inline has developed a proprietary process to produce a glass/polyurethane window lineal that does not require painting because color is provided via an in-process decoration technique. At present, the plan is to market the window to light industrial and low-rise commercial buildings.
HOPING FOR HIGH-RISE APPROVAL
Serious Energy’s Clarke believes these new material formulations bode well for the future of installations in high-rise offi ce building applications that were previously off limits to fi berglass windows. He reports that his company is working with the New York City mayor’s Offi ce of Energy to obtain approval for plans to retrofi t an eight-story building with Class B fi re-rated fi berglass windows. Clarke is confi dent that approval will be granted but cautions that there are still hurdles that manufacturers and window marketeeers must clear before there is widespread acceptance of fi berglass in large commercial buildings.
“Aluminum has been entrenched in the industry for 40-plus years,” he says, “so there are some signifi cant infrastructure con-straints in terms of tooling, dies, fi xtures, brackets, etc., none of which work at all with fi berglass.” Still, Clarke argues that there is no inherent practical impediment to, or valid argument against, re-placement of aluminum with an IBC-approved fi berglass formula-tion that has appropriate reinforcements. “Displacing aluminum is an absolute ‘should,’” says Clarke.
As the company’s effort in New York City demonstrates, however, the benefits of fiberglass materials will not sell them-selves. Window manufacturers will have to work closely with architects and construction firms and navigate the political ma-chinery of local and state governments to make Clarke’s impera-tive a reality.
RESIDENTIAL GROWTH: LOOKING TO LOOKS
Th e same properties that make fi berglass windows an attractive choice for commercial buildings (i.e., low thermal conductivity, durability, dimensional stability and sound-damping proper-ties) also make them more appealing in the residential market. Th e hindrance to enlarging market share in this highly competi-tive arena has been the higher price point of fi berglass windows, especially in comparison to vinyl products. In response, window manufacturers are adding to their superior structural performance and greater longevity an aesthetic component that is helping to
Graham Architectural Products recently became the fi rst company in
North America to offer a fully commercial pultruded, glass-reinforced
polyurethane window targeted for large-scale commercial use. The GThurm
Windows are approved for use in low-rise buildings of less than four stories,
and the company recently used the windows to retrofi t an administration
building on the Bayer MaterialScience campus in Pittsburgh, Pa. The high
structural strength of the polyurethane windows allowed architects to design
a nearly continuous wall of windows (the previous window structure can be
viewed in the inset), to provide nearly unobstructed natural lighting.
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Gra
ham
Arc
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ctur
al P
rodu
cts
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provide a degree of separation between fi berglass windows and the rest of a very crowded fi eld.
Al Dueck, president of Duxton Windows and Doors (Winni-peg, Manitoba, Canada), says he is encountering more customers that are disinclined to use either aluminum or vinyl for retrofits and new construction. “Aluminum windows are poor insulators and vinyl has reached a certain level of maturity where people are seeing the limits of its durability, color choices and styles,” Dueck observes.
Duxton targets a higher-end niche market by manufacturing a line of energy effi cient windows with a variety of unique col-ors, fi nishes and patinas, as well as custom details. Th e company purchases its lineals from Inline Fiberglass. Duxton is supplying Echo-Logic Land Corp. (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) with fi berglass triple-pane, low-emission windows for a demonstration commu-nity of “zero emission” houses in the province. Suspended fi lm be-tween each pane of glass creates separate chambers that are fi lled with argon gas. Th e window system reduces winter heat loss and summer heat gain by as much as 80 percent compared to conven-tional double-pane windows. “Our focus is strictly on fi berglass and the benefi ts it provides,” Dueck says. “We don’t try to appeal to everyone.”
Teel Plastics (Baraboo, Wis.) supplies complex pultruded door thresholds and sills for windows, doors and skylights to a number of major window and door manufacturers. Th e company can produce profi les reinforced by aramid and carbon fi ber, as
11022 Vulcan St., South Gate, CA 90280 USA Phone 562.923.0838 Fax 562.861.3475email [email protected]@trindustries.com
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Echo-Logic Land Corp. (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) has designed and
built a community of 25 “zero-emission” houses in Calgary. The houses
are fitted with argon-filled, triple-pane, low-emission windows. Winnipeg,
Manitoba-based Duxton Windows and Doors manufactures the windows,
using pultruded glass fiber/polyester profiles with a 60:40 fiber-to-
resin ratio.
Source | Duxton Windows and Doors
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FEATURE: Architectural Pultrusions
Read this article online | http://short.compositesworld.com/9PpCbyvX.
Read more in “Pultruded heavy commercial window an industry fi rst” | CT June 2005 (p. 44) | http://short.compositesworld.com/ZKjzxZaf.
Contributing WriterMichael R. LeGault is a freelance writer located in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is the former editor of Canadian Plastics magazine (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)[email protected]
well as glass, in a variety of thermoset matrices, including vinyl ester, polyester and epoxy. Tom Th ompson, Teel’s CFO, says the company’s fl exibility and range of pultrusion capabilities has po-sitioned it well to capture the upswing in demand for better per-forming doors and windows with unique aesthetics. “A fi berglass window is the last window a person will ever need,” Th ompson claims. “You can’t say that about vinyl.” He anticipates double-digit growth as the uptick in the construction market continues over the next few years.
Visual appeal is the goal for Inline’s newest line of windows, the Eternity 9000 Double Hung Series. Sales manager Bartolini says the main diff erence between the Eternity and the company’s old line of double-hung windows, the Sovereign Series, is design aesthetics. “We’ve minimized the trim, maximized the sight line, added contoured edges and made the window sexier to the eyes,” he says. Customers can choose from fi ve standard colors and a range of custom colors and fi nishes, including a red oak veneer for the interior fi nish. But its appeal isn’t only to the eye. Th e Eternity 9000 Double Hung Series also is designed to accommodate the more stringent 2013 Energy Star rating, with an enhanced glazing pocket of 1.125 inches/28.6 mm, which allows the window to ac-commodate the thicker insulated glass units used in triple-glazed applications. “A glazing pocket this wide is unheard of for double-hung windows,” Bartolini says.
As the economy and the building construction market show signs of recovery, pultruders are overcoming technical and aesthetic challenges — from precise color matching to structural load-bear-ing capabilities — in the manufacture of window frame lineals. As they do, fi berglass windows are shedding their image as too costly and/or impractical for not only residential construction but also for elusive commercial buildings. Builders and building owners are taking a second look at the aesthetic and performance benefi ts af-forded by fi berglass. If the building construction market continues to rebound — an outcome the current economic reality does not yet guarantee — pultruders are well positioned to capitalize on an eco-nomic upturn. In fact, pultruders could see growth in their window business greater than that in the prerecession economy, even if the coming boom is smaller. | CT |
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www.hexcel.com
HexPly® Carbon
Wind Turbine
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odern expressions of art have been on display since 1895 in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art. Now the storied museum boasts a stunning and futuristic-
looking new entrance and exhibition space that stands as a piece of modern art in its own right. “Th e Bathtub,” as locals call the addition, stands, or rather fl oats, in stark contrast to the straight lines and decorative neo-Renaissance style of the original 19th century building to which it is linked.
Designed by architect Mels Crouwel of Amsterdam-based ar-chitectural fi rm Benthem-Crouwel (BCA), the 3000m2 (32,292-ft 2) structure boasts a completed façade with a shining white surface that is smooth and seamless — much like the common bathroom fi x-ture that inspired its nickname. But this structure, the world’s largest composite-clad building, is anything but ordinary. “Crouwel knew that if he designed a new entrance that looked like the old build-ing, no matter what he did, visitors would always be able to tell that one side was old and one was new,” says Danny Wilms Floet, sales and technical manager for composites at Teijin Armaid
Massive aramid/carbon composite sandwich panels make Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum
the largest composite-clad building in the world.
BV (Arnhem, The Netherlands), a subsidiary of Teijin (Tokyo, Japan). Because Teijin Aramid’s headquarters is in The Nether-lands, Teijin became a primary sponsor of the museum’s renova-tion project. Rather than fight the old/new dichotomy, the archi-tect embraced it, juxtaposing the old brickwork of the original building with the extension’s new high-gloss, seamless façade.
Critical to the architect’s vision was the seamless eff ect on the building’s exterior. However, creating a seamless wall that measures 100m/328-ft long is no small feat. “Th e architect had the idea, but, in the early phase, it was unclear how that vision could be turned into reality,” says Wilms Floet.
For the past six years, an array of companies, including Teijin Aramid and Toho Tenax (Wuppertal, Germany), which donated ar-amid and carbon fi ber, respectively; Holland Composites (Lelystad, Th e Netherlands), the manufacturer of the façade; and engineering fi rm Solico BV (Oosterhout, Th e Netherlands) worked in concert to design, engineer, produce and install the panels that make up the new extension’s composite cladding.
BIG STRUCTURES
M
BIG MUSEUM
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INSIDE MANUFACTURING
Top coatingFRP laminate
PIR foamFRP laminate Source | Te
ijin Aramid
Twaron para-aramid fi berTenax carbon fi ber
Twaron para-aramid
Fibers embedded in vinyl ester resin
CHALLENGE 1: THERMAL EXPANSION
The first step in realizing the architect’s vision was to determine what, if any, material could provide the desired super-flat, super-smooth, seamless finish. Most troublesome was the seamless 100m/328-ft wide expanse required on the structure’s largest side. Panels made from conventional construction materials need dilation seams to allow for expansion and contraction caused by changing temperatures. Depending on the material, these seams can be as wide as 20 mm/0.79-inch. And the façade is not only exposed to changing external temperatures (expected to range from -25°C to 35°C/-4°F to 95°F) but it also must withstand large differences between internal and external temperatures.
A feasibility study conducted by Solico focused on fi nding a materials solution that would provide minimal thermal expansion and contraction yet yield enough rigidity to bear high wind loads and other environmental hazards without buckling or warping. Any distortion would be easily visible on such a large, fl at, high-gloss surface.
Large aramid-and-carbon-
fi ber/vinyl ester sandwich
panels exhibited thermal
expansion small enough to
provide stable building
blocks for the 100m/328-
ft wide seamless façade of
the Stedelijk Museum’s
new extension, making it
the largest composite-clad
building in the world. Sour
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Teiji
n Ar
amid
Engineering fi rm Solico BV (Oosterhout, The Neth-
erlands) was called in to fi nd a materials solution
that could achieve the seamless façade desired by
the architect. Analysis concluded that a sandwich
construction of aramid and carbon fi bers wet out
with vinyl ester resin over a polyisocyanurate (PIR)
foam core would provide the low thermal expan-
sion required for the project.
Solico analyzed 3-D digital models supplied by BCA, adding dimensions and properties of the diff erent elements and materials and including static sections to indicate where the façade would be fi xed to its supporting steel structure. Simulations were conducted to see how particular composite materials would withstand the stresses and strains of high winds, summer heat and winter frost. In addition, wind tunnel testing was conducted on a physical model of one section of the façade.
Th e optimum materials solution, according to Solico, needed to meet tight tolerances: To be acceptable, a fi nished panel would ex-hibit a deformation level of no greater than 0.3 percent of a panel’s total dimensions and a thermal expansion of no more than 0.1 per-cent of its total length.
“Every millimeter counts when you need 100m [328 ft ] of seam-less-looking structure,” says Wilms Floet. “An extension made of glass fi ber or aluminum, for example, could result in an expansion of about 17.5 cm [6.89 inches] with a temperature rise from -20°C to 50°C [-4°F to 122°F].”
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4 Twaron aramid and Tenax carbon fi ber
formed the inner and outer skins of the
laminate. Here, carbon fi ber is being placed
perpendicular to the ply of aramid that was
already placed. Another layer of aramid will
follow, prior to resin injection.
1 Teijin produced and donated 4,850
kg/10,692 lb of Twaron high-modulus fi ber,
which was converted into unidirectional
fabrics.
5 The entire layup is covered with a vacuum bag.
8 Holland Composites engineered and
commissioned the building of a vacuum-activated
mounting tool for this project. Attached to a
forklift, it gripped the outer skin of the panel
using vacuum clamps and then could twist and
tilt panels into position for mounting.
2 Flat panels were produced on a large fl at
mold constructed from fl oat glass (molten
glass fl oated on molten metal) that, when
cooled, formed a truly fl at surface.
6 The bagged layup is vacuum infused with
fi re-retardant vinyl ester resin. Demolded
panels were trucked to the job site.
9 A wet lamination process was used to bond
the panels into one seamless façade. PIR
foam was placed in the gap and then (as
shown here) covered with a prepared strip of
aramid/carbon/glass laminate.
3 Solico provided the calculation for ply layup of
the sandwich structure and staging of the
fi ber. After mold release was applied, a layer of
E-glass fabric was added, followed by two
layers of Twaron para-aramid UD fabric with
a layer of Tenax unidirectional carbon fi ber
fabric in between — placed perpendicular to
the aramid. Fire-retardant PIR foam, shown
here, forms the laminate’s core.
7 To prepare for precision installation of
panels to the museum extension’s steel
structure, a technician at the job site
attaches caps that fi t over the façade’s
welded mounting points. Holland developed a
set of six plastic caps that permitted minor
adjustments to compensate for small
deviations in hole accuracy.
10 Once bonded with vinyl ester resin, the
laminate strips placed in between the
larger panels created a strengthening
connection, ensuring the façade acts as one
large composite structure. The structure was
ready for sanding and coating.
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INSIDE MANUFACTURING
According to Solico’s analysis, a potential materials solution was a composite sandwich construction that incorporated Teijin’ Aramid’s Twaron aramid and Toho’s Tenax carbon fi bers wet out with a vinyl ester resin over a polyisocyanurate foam core.
“Using Twaron and Tenax, there is an expansion of 1 mm [0.39 inch] per degree Celsius temperature rise,” says Wilms Floet. Th e ar-amid and carbon fi bers have a negative longitudinal thermal expan-sion coeffi cient, meaning they contract as temperatures rise, while under the same conditions the vinyl ester resin expands. “Th e fi ber, more or less, counteracts the expansion of the resin, resulting in a material with a very low thermal expansion,” he explains.
Teijin produced and donated Twaron aramid fi ber and Tenax carbon fi ber for the structure, enabling what would otherwise be a cost-prohibitive solution. “Without the Twaron and Tenax fi ber, we would never have been able to realize the structure as it is now,” says Wilms Floet. Teijin Aramid’s fi ber research laboratory verifi ed Solico’s analysis on actual samples of the proposed sandwich struc-ture. And Holland Composites, tapped to manufacture and install the panels, constructed a prototype consisting of six panels bonded together, sanded and coated, which was used by Holland and Solico to confi rm the composite’s ability to provide a fl at, smooth surface.
CHALLENGE 2: LARGE AND FLAT PANELS
Although the panels were large — the biggest measured 15m high by 3.5m wide (49 ft by 12 ft ) — the greatest manufacturing challenge was to achieve the complete fl atness required for each panel, says Sven Erik Janssen, co-owner and production manager at Holland Composites. Th e slightest variation in the fl at, high-gloss 100m expanse of the structure would be easily visible.
As a solution, Holland Composites constructed a large fl at mold using fl oat glass panels. (Float glass is made by, literally, fl oating molten glass on a bed of molten metal. Th e result, when cooled, is a plate with uniform thickness and a truly fl at surface.) “We’ve used fl oat glass before in the manufacture of fl at panels,” explains Janssen. “For this project, however, we applied a self-leveling compound to the glass to ensure a surface that was as fl at as it could be.”
Th e tool measures 17m by 4m (56 ft by 13 ft ). In all, Holland Composites produced 275 components to make 185 panels required for the Bathtub’s façade. Each panel was unique. “Panels varied in size,” says Janssen. “Some also required holes to allow for lights and cameras to be mounted into the façade.”
21.55
20.05
18.51
16.96
15.42
13.88
12.34
10.80
9.253
7.711
6.169
4.627
3.084
1.542
0.0
The aramid and carbon fi bers, which have a negative coeffi cient of thermal
expansion, essentially cancel out the thermal expansion of the vinyl ester
resin, resulting in a façade expected to expand a mere 1 mm/0.04 inch per
degree Celsius of temperature rise. Teijin Aramid’s fi ber research laboratory
verifi ed Solico’s analysis on actual samples of the proposed sandwich
structure.
X - Displacement (mm)View : 4.256E-05
Range: 21.5906
ROTX -110.3ROTY 0.0
ROTZ 26.5
X
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Solic
o BV
“We have a product traceability system, so all panels have [their] own construction checklist[s] and measurement documentation,” he adds. “Every panel had to be measured onto the fl at mold before production could begin and then again during production,” he adds.
Solico provided the calculation for ply layup of the sandwich structure and staging of the fi ber. Aft er mold release was applied, the buildup began with E-glass fabric. “Aramid fi ber is good at what it does, but the fi bers themselves do not completely impregnate with the resin,” says Janssen. “So, the fi rst layers on the outside of the panel are glass fi bers, which provides a more resin-rich exterior to support sanding and coating preparation.”
Next, two layers of Twaron para-aramid unidrectional (UD) fab-ric were applied with a layer of Tenax carbon fi ber UD fabric in be-tween, placed perpendicular to the aramid. In total, 4,850 kg/10,692 lb of Twaron high-modulus fi ber, with a linear density of 8,050 dtex, and 4,050 kg/8,928 lb of Tenax STS-40 24K fi ber were used in the project. Th e fi re-retardant polyisocyanurate foam for the core came from the Recticel Group (Brussels, Belgium).
Lastly, aramid and carbon plies were repeated, and then the pan-el layup was vacuum bagged for vacuum injection of a fi re-retardant vinyl ester resin from DSM Composite Resins AG (Schaffh ausen, Switzerland).
“Th e complete manufacturing of the panels took nearly six months,” says Janssen. “Th ere was a lot of handwork in building the laminate and fi nishing work aft er the panels were produced,” he adds. “Some of the fi nished panels were built by combining multiple panels to create the round corners of the Bathtub, and some panels have round edges mounted on one side for water drainage.” All of the corner elements were bonded at Holland Compositess manufac-turing facility prior to shipping the panels to the work site.
CHALLENGE 3: PRECISE INSTALLATION
Th e job didn’t end with the fabrication of the façade panels. Th e company was also tapped to install the panels and apply the topcoat.
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Th e 23-week installation required several innovative solutions. “Because of the size of the panels, typically 15.0m by 3.5m [49 ft by 12 ft ], and other work being done on the site, we had to do most of the installation work on the façade on the weekends or at night,” explains Janssen. Panels were delivered to the site, which sits in a busy area in the center of Amsterdam, during controlled time windows in the early morning. In all, it took six weeks to deliver all of the panels.
Because the fi nal panel assembly was done on site, the massive coating operation was also done on site. Holland Composites con-structed scaff olding around the steel structure and sealed the work area to create a dust-free, temperature-controlled environment.
Yet, before any of this could begin, Holland Composites needed to ensure that the panels could be mounted on the steel structure with enough precision to maintain the super-fl at façade. If one of the 185 panels was set a millimeter too far in either direction, the shape of the entire 100m by 25m (328-ft by 82-ft ) façade would be distorted. In all, 1,800 anchor points had to be positioned on the backsides of the panels with submillimeter accuracy. Anchors were attached in postproduction at the manufacturing facility.
“Accuracy is the key when working on such a large façade,” stresses Janssen. “We always use 3-D techniques for our measuring, both for our molds and products in-house, as well as on the job site,” he explains. “Initially, we were able to produce an accuracy of ±3 mm [±0.19 inch] for each anchor position.” To ensure accuracy, 3-D laser measurements were used on the job site to map the exact position of each of the mounting points on the steel structure and
identify which anchors needed to be adjusted, and by how much, to achieve zero tolerance.
To make the required adjustments, a set of six plastic caps were developed that fi t over the mounting points already welded to the steel structure. Th e caps could shift the position of the anchor point by 1, 2 or 3 mm, (0.039, 0.079, or 0.118 inch), either forward or backward. Using a map of the mounting block locations, workers were able to place all the necessary caps prior to panel installation.
To position the panels against the anchor points without mar-ring the panel’s outer surface, Holland Composites had to develop another custom solution. “We completely engineered and commis-sioned the building of a vacuum mounting tool for this project,” explains Janssen. Th e tool is designed as an attachment for a forklift and employs vacuum clamps to grip the composite skin, similar to how panes of glass are handled. Holland’s Composites’ production personnel received special training to operate this machine, which can twist and tilt the panel with exacting accuracy.
“It allows the operator to remotely control the panel while stand-ing on the scaff olding or high worker [lift bucket]. So, they can actu-ally see the anchor points on the steel structure in relation to the cor-responding anchor points on the backside of the panel,” he explains. “Th is allowed them to precisely move the panels into position.”
CHALLENGE 4: SEALING THE SEAMS
Aft er the panels were mounted, a wet laminating process was used to create the seamless surface. Th e panels were manufactured with
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INSIDE MANUFACTURING
Read this article online | http://short.compositesworld.com/UAgICu8N.
left and right sides designed to interlock aft er the panels were in place, explains Janssen.
“On the left side of the panels, holes were drilled completely through the sandwich structure, while on the right side a backing plate was attached that would sit behind the holes,” he explains. “We injected vinyl ester resin through the holes to bond the panel to the backing plate of the panel next to it. Th is was necessary because we didn’t have access to the backside of the panels.”
Next, the small gaps (less than 51 mm/2 inches) in between the panels were fi lled with polyisocyanurate foam and covered with prepared strips of aramid/carbon/glass laminate. “Each of the large panels had a slight recess on the side of the outer edge to allow for the laminate strip to be placed without disrupting the surface,” explains Janssen. Aft er they were bonded with vinyl es-ter resin, the laminate strips created a strengthening connection between the panels, ensuring that the façade panels would acts as one large composite structure.
Temperature control within the work space was critical for both resin mixing and the spray coating operation needed to apply the topcoat. Winter in Amsterdam typically brings frigid temperatures, and workers needed the temperature inside the workspace to range from 15°C to 18°C (59°F to 64°F). “We had to maintain this tem-perature not just at ground level, but all the way to the top of the structure,” adds Janssen. “You can’t have a temperature variation from top to bottom because the coating will react diff erently, which can create a variation in the shine of the coating,” he explains.
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A regular CT freelancer, Karen Wood previously served as the managing editor of Injection Molding Magazine (Denver, Colo.). [email protected]
HAVE YOU HEARD THE BUZZ?
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To avoid any visible striping in the topcoat, the entire structure had to be coated in one pass, adds Janssen. “When you’re spray coating such a large structure, you can’t have one side getting hard while you’re spraying another part,” he says. “We worked in teams of painters, sometimes as many as 15 painters at a time. Everyone had very specifi c jobs, and once the process began, it couldn’t be stopped.” Th e coating process was completed in four phases, with the entire structure coated during each phase.
In the end, the architect’s vision of a seamless façade was achieved. Stedelijk’s Bathtub stands not only as a modernist visual icon of the museum’s artistic mission, but also as an artful expres-sion of what can be accomplished with composites in the artful hands of architects and engineers who understand the unique be-havior of these most modern of materials. | CT |
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CompositesWorld Conferences deliver high quality content focusing on business trends and strategy, technological advances, and market forecasts.
Make plans to attend all of the events in the 2012 CompositesWorld Conference series!
High-Performance Composites for Aircraft InteriorsSeptember 25-26, 2012Co-located with Aircraft Interiors Expo Americas 2012Washington State Convention Center, Seattle, WA, USAAt CompositesWorld’s 2012 High-Performance Composites for Aircraft Interiors, new developments in the fields of high-temperature and fire-resistant applications, including recent changes in FAA FST requirements for materials of construction and potential solutions will be discussed by composite industry innovators. Presentations about breakthroughs in thermoset and thermoplastic resin systems are planned, as well as new developments in core, such as Nomex® and Kevlar® honeycomb, and adhesive bonding and curing processes. Network with the best in the business at 2012 High-Performance Composites for Aircraft Interiors!
CONFERENCE SERIES
To learn more or to register visit: www.compositesworld.com/conferences
For more information, contactScott StephensonConference [email protected]+1 207-221-6602
CompositesWorld 2012: Materials, Markets, Manufacturing October 22-23, 2012Co-located with SAMPE Tech 2012Charleston Convention Center, North Charleston, SC, USABeing held in conjunction with SAMPE Tech 2012 at the Charleston Convention Center in North Charleston, SC, the two-day CompositesWorld 2012: Materials/Markets/Manufacturing conference will give an overview of the key market opportunities for composite materials business followed by new process and product developments and manufacturing technologies for both industry veterans and newcomers to the composites industry alike.
Carbon Fiber 2012 December 4-6, 2012Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, La Jolla, CA, USACompositesWorld’s Carbon Fiber 2012 conference will provide an objective, comprehensive forum to discuss new developments for carbon fibers in emerging industrial markets, such as wind energy, marine, and construction, as well as in traditional aerospace and sporting goods markets. Discussions will focus on methods to streamline manufacturing costs, and the outlook for consumption in markets with significant potential for growth. Networking opportunities with top industry professionals are at their finest at the Carbon Fiber 2012 catered networking events!
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
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Applications
ApplicationsCURED-IN-PLACE PIPE UV curing ensures liner performance in leaking pipe
Th e Utilities Board in Knoxville, Tenn., knew that cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) could enable faster, lower-cost repair of an 8-inch/203-mm diameter clay sewer pipe that had been in service in the city for more than 50 years. But pre-installation video showed active leaks in the pipe. Typically a CIPP liner is impregnated with resin that cures when it is exposed to heat, but active leaks create cool spots that could prevent thorough cure and result in reduced mechanical proper-ties. City engineers were concerned: Would that prevent a successful CIPP liner installation?
Th ey opted for an alternative, trademarked BLUE-TEK technology, from Reline America Inc. (Saltville, Va.), the exclusive North American partner for the technology established by Brandenburger GmbH (Landau, Pfalz, Germany). Th e fi berglass fabric liners were impregnated with an ultra-violet (UV)-curable Vipel unsaturated polyester from AOC Resins (Collierville, Tenn.), in which a photo-initiator additive would drive cure regardless of resin temperature. Moreover, the liner could be shipped without refrigeration.
Danielle Verderame, marketing coordinator for Reline America, says, “Th e project site was located in a combination residential and industrial area ... close to buildings. Open cutting and pipe bursting would have been expensive and disruptive options.”
Th e work was awarded to Portland Utilities Construction Co. LLC (PUCC, Portland, Tenn.), a company with years of experience
in pipe bursting methods but none with CIPP repair. PUCC principal and manager Mike Woodcock says that Reline’s support helped turn the 2,991 ft /912m pilot project into a new capa-bility for his company. “Reline Amer-ica did an outstanding job in training our crew,” he says, which included giving them an understanding of the UV-curing process and the use of the wheeled “train” (see photo) that is used to expose the liner to UV light.
Th e liners were impregnated under controlled conditions in Reline’s ISO-certifi ed facility, and Wood-cock reports that the resin reacted smoothly during an installation so successful that the Utilities Board opted to reline 6,533 ft /1,991m of additional clay pipe.
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Calendar
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Calendar
June 3-6, 2012 WINDPOWER 2012 Atlanta, Ga. | www.windpowerexpo.org
June 12-13, 2012 6th CFK-Valley Stade Convention Stade, Germany | www.cfk-convention.com
June 13-14, 2012 Amerimold 2012 Novi, Mich. | www.amerimoldexpo.com
June 20-22, 2012 SAE Composites Symposia – Economics of Composites and Design, Tooling and Manufacturing of Composites Torino, Italy | www.sae.org/events
June 26-28, 2012 JEC Asia 2012 Singapore | www.jeccomposites.com/ events/jec-asia-2012
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See more @ www.compositesworld.com/events
Sept. 10-15, 2012 IMTS 2012 Chicago, Ill. | www.imts.com
Sept. 11-13, 2012 SPE Automotive Composites Conference and Exhibition (ACCE) Troy, Mich. | www.speautomotive.com/ comp.htm
Sept. 12-13, 2012 *TRAM3 2012 – Trends in Advanced Machining, Manufacturing and Materials Chicago, Ill. | www.tram-conference.com
Sept. 25-27, 2012 2012 High-Performance Resins for Aircraft Interiors Seattle, Wash. | http://www.compositesworld. com/conferences/2012-high-performance- resins-for-aircraft-interiors
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July 22-28, 2012 ICCE-20 Beijing, China | www.icce-nano.org
July 23-29, 2012 AirVenture Oshkosh Oshkosh, Wis. | www.airventure.orgJ
ULY
Aug. 6-9, 2012 AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems North America 2012 Las Vegas, Nev. | www.auvsishow.org
Aug. 7-9, 2012 ICNFA 2012 – International Conference on Nanotechnology Montreal, Ontario, Canada | http://icnfa2012. international-aset.com/index.html
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*part of IMTS Show **co-located with SAMPE Tech Conference
***co-located with IFAI Expo Americas
Oct. 2-4, 2012 IBEX 2012 Louisville, Kentucky | www.ibexshow.com
Oct. 9-11, 2012 Composites Europe 2012 Dusseldorf, Germany | www.composites-europe.com
Oct. 15-17, 2012 SAMPE China 2012 Beijing, China | www.sampe.org
Oct. 22-25, 2012 SAMPE Tech Conference North Charleston, S.C. | www.sampe.org
Oct. 22-23 2012 **CompositesWorld 2012: Materials, Markets, Manufacturing
North Charleston, S.C. | www.compositesworld.com/events
Oct. 29-30, 2012 ITHEC 2012 Bremen, Germany | www.ithec.de
Nov. 1-3, 2012 India Composites Show 2012Delhi, India | http://indiacompositesshow.com
Nov. 7-9, 2012 IFAI Expo AmericasBoston, Mass. | www.ifaiexpo.com
Nov. 7-9, 2012 ***JEC AmericasBoston, Mass. | www.jeccomposites. com/events/jec-americas-2012
Dec. 4-6, 2012 Carbon Fiber 2012
La Jolla, Calif. | www.compositesworld.com/ conferences
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New Products
ProductsNEW
Epoxy resin for large-part infusionAditya Birla Chemicals Thailand Ltd. (Bangkok, Thailand), a part of Aditya Birla Group of India, introduced Epotec, a new-generation epoxy resin system for infusion of wind blades. Reportedly based on new chemistry developed for blade manufacture, the resin exhibits long out-time, slow viscosity development and lower exothermic heat reac-tion, yet it offers good strength development during cure. The system, which the company says has mechanical properties comparable to those of competitive systems currently in use in wind blade manufac-ture, has been approved by standards organization Germanischer Lloyd. www.adityabirlachemicals.com
High-strength glass for high-voltage linesAGY Holdings LLC (Aiken, S.C.) revealed that its S-1 HM glass fi bers are being used in the core of composite-reinforced aluminum conductors for high-voltage electrical transmission lines. AmpStar (Harbor City, Calif.), a wholly owned subsidiary of G.I.F.T. LLC (the successor trustee to W. Brandt Goldsworthy and Assoc.), has incorporated S-1 HM glass to strengthen the core of its CRAC cables, because the high-strength, high-modulus glass fi ber allows the use of higher conductive annealed aluminum, increasing ampacity by up to 100 percent, and delivers better heat and mechanical properties with less line sag at a competitive price. www.agy.com
Resin infusion suppliesAirtech International Inc. (Huntington Beach, Calif.) has introduced several new products. Dahlpac MC79 is a strip material for resin infusion processes that allows the application of vacuum pressure to a composite laminate with no resin bleed out and minimal part mark off. The material is made with Dahltexx SP-2 fabric, which is said to breathe effi ciently and control resin fl ow. Wrapped inside Dahltexx SP-2 is a breather mesh that provides an air path along the length of the Dahlpac, enabling trapped and residual air to escape before and during infusion. The maximum use tem-perature is 125°C/257°F, and it comes in sizes up to 115 mm/4.5 inches wide and 24.3m/80 ft long. www.airtechonline.com
Cobalt-free cure acceleratorsAkzoNobel Functional Chemicals (Amersfoort, The Netherlands and Chicago, Ill.) held a press conference at JEC to announce its new BluCure umbrella brand, in partnership with DSM Composite Resins (Zwolle, The Netherlands), which encompasses sustainable products for cobalt-free cur-ing. This novel approach aims to eliminate cobalt octoate — the main ingredient used in accelerators for curing unsaturated polyesters and vi-nyl esters — which the companies believe will be deemed hazardous in the near future. BluCure products, based on copper, manganese and iron, include cobalt-free pre-accelerated resins and ready-to-use cobalt-free accelerators that enable fabricators to dose their own resins. According to the company, the new accelerators (used in place of legacy products) will maintain a fabricator’s existing cycle times and mechanical properties. www.akzonobel.com/polymer | www.dsmcompositeresins.com
Sprayable, integrally heated vacuum bagsAxson Technologies’ (Cergy, France) new technologies included a reusable silicone bagging concept with an integral heating insert. The vacuum bag or countermold is created by fi rst spraying the company’s SVB 20 silicone material to match the tool. Next, small electrical heating wires supplied by Flexelec (Saint Bonnet de Mure, France) are embed-ded in the material while it cures, offering cost savings by eliminating ex-pendables while targeting mold heating in key areas for complex shapes. www.axson-na.com
Antifoaming agent for vinyl ester resinsBYK-Chemie GmbH (Wesel, Germany) exhibited a range of processing additives and coupling agents for composites processing. On display was a new product, BYK-P 9928, a processing additive for foam-free vinyl esters. Because the primary way to cure vinyl ester resins involves standard curing agents, such as methyl ethyl ketone peroxide (MEKP), which can lead to foam formation, alternatives were investigated but were often toxic. This new additive enables the use of MEKP by slowing the cure slightly and causing the hydrogen peroxide to decompose into radicals that react
Editor’s note: Exhibitors at a composites industry trade show often use the event to introduce new products. In the past, CT has reported on those new products in a larger report in the magazine about the show. In order to more ef-
JEC Europe 2012 Showcase
fectively highlight such new products, they will now be found here, with a label to denote the trade event at which they were introduced — this month, JEC Europe 2012. For a report on other news from the show, please turn to p. 16.
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New Products
with the vinyl ester, rather than forming water and oxygen, the culprits behind the foam formation. The additive has no negative infl uence on the part’s mechanical properties, says the company, and it comes in an easy-to-incorporate liquid form that is said to be stable for at least six months. www.byk.com
Prepreg machines for in-house useCentury Design Inc. (CDI, San Diego, Calif.) has developed a small pro-duction prepreg machine targeted for small- to medium-sized producers. Its features include automated controls that incorporate processing recipes; a
plug-and-play design that requires no facility changes to install or operate; and an optional ply consolidator that enables the production of prepreg widths up to 1,000 mm/39.4 inches. The system benefi ts reportedly include a reduction in material costs of up to 40 percent. www.centurydesign.com
Design and machining softwareDelcam (Birmingham, U.K.) reported a major change in the 2012 release of PowerSHAPE design software. It now has a new range of direct model-ing options focused on design for manufacture — in particular, preparing product designs for the development of tooling. Direct modeling is faster than surface modeling, says the company, and can shorten the overall tool production time. The 2012 version of the PowerMILL machining system includes new strategies and general enhancements that reportedly make programming faster and machining more effi cient, with the best possible surface fi nish. www.delcam.com
Low-density/high-performance PVC foam coreThe DIAB Group (Laholm, Sweden and DeSoto, Texas) introduced a new grade of Divinycell Matrix PVC foam core material, called Matrix 10-8. Ma-trix series cores are designed to deliver high mechanical performance at as low a density as possible to avoid overengineering of applications, says the
company. With its compression and shear strength properties and improved temperature resistance for tougher processing conditions, Matrix 10-8 is positioned to perform in wind turbine blades and other structural applica-tions. www.diabgroup.com
Preform shaping machineryDieffenbacher (Eppingen, Germany) introduced the PreformCenter, ca-pable of fully automated production of dry, dimensionally stable 3-D carbon fi ber preforms. As part of a complete production line in the high-pressure resin transfer molding (HP-RTM) process, the PreformCenter can be confi g-ured for use in large and small batch production. Besides preform produc-tion, the HP-RTM line also includes the compression process and the related fi nishing steps for lightweight components. In addition, Dieffenbacher also presented its sheet molding compound (SMC) direct line. This direct process for producing thermoset material (D-SMC) enables less costly production of semifi nished product. www.dieffenbacher.de
Wind blade foam core, with small cell sizeDow Epoxy (Midland, Mich.) has developed the COMPAXX 900 foam core system, designed to enable fabrication of wind blades that exceed 40m/131 ft in length. The foam’s small cell size — up to 100 times smaller than cells in chemical-blown foam such as PVC — limits the amount of resin that can fi ll cut cells at the surface. Other features include good skin-to-core bonding and fatigue resistance, as well as better static performance than PVC foam. www.epoxy.dow.com
Automated tape-laying ventureFraunhofer ICT (Pfi nztal, Germany) touted its growing array of innovative processing approaches. One, in cooperation with Fiberforge Corp. (Glen-wood Springs, Colo.), involves production of high-performance structural parts, typically for automotive applications, using Fiberforge’s RELAY 2000 automated tape-laying technology. Said to be capable of laying thermoplas-tic tapes rapidly on a fl at table, at any angle and width, and with varying fi ber types, the system locates tapes by moving its table rather than its head. It places tapes only where material is needed, cuts them to near-net shape and then, using ultrasonic welding, tacks the tape plies together. The tape-layed blank is then shaped to part dimensions via secondary pro-cesses, such as thermoforming or injection molding, for a strong, tailored part with continuous fi ber reinforcement in key areas. www.ict.fhg.de | www.fi berforge.com
Epoxy prepreg for wind bladesGurit (Newport, Isle of Wight, U.K.) has launched Velinox, a novel modifi ed epoxy prepreg that features fast-cure characteristics and can be stored at
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temperatures in excess of 35°C/95°F. Reportedly suitable for use in thick sections, such as the spars and roots of wind turbine blades, its cure profi le can be modifi ed to eliminate dwell periods, providing greater control of exotherm. It is compatible with glass, carbon and aramid fi bers and has a four-month shelf life at 35°C/95°F. www.gurit.com
Fast-cure adhesive for automotive applicationsHenkel AG & Co. (Dusseldorf, Germany) offered a new fast-curing, high-strength polyurethane-based adhesive aimed at fast-cycle automotive structural composites. The single-pack adhesive, which requires no mixing, comprises an isocyanate wrapped in a urea envelope. The curing agent is stable at ambient temperature, but when it is heated to above 80°C/176°F it is activated. The envelope dissolves, allowing the adhesive to be applied, and then the adhesive hardens and cures in seconds, for a fast part cycle time. The company says the new adhesive is not affected by shop humidity, and because the activation temperature is relatively low, the adhesive is suitable for heat-sensitive substrates. It also offers constant mechanical properties over a wide temperature range. www.henkel.com
New glass fi ber products for demanding applicationsAt JEC, Owens Corning Com-posite Materials (Toledo, Ohio) an-nounced its new FoodContact glass fi ber solution for re-inforced plastics in consumer applianc-es and food-prep-aration equipment. Developed to per-form optimally in high-temperature resins — such as polyphenylene sulfi de (PPS), liquid crystal polymer (LCP) and others — the chopped strand meets upcoming 2016 European Commission regulations for glass fi ber sizing chemistry and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). www.owenscorning.com
Resin for automotive part cycle timesHuntsman Advanced Materials (Basel, Switzerland and The Wood-lands, Texas) focused on new products for fast and cost-competitive pro-cessing. The company featured an Araldite resin system for high-pressure resin transfer molding (RTM) and compression molding. Targeted to the
auto industry, the resin enables production cycle times as short as three minutes for RTM and less than one minute for compression molding. The company’s resin is used to produce the RTM’d carbon composite pas-senger chassis cell for the Lamborghini Aventador supercar. www.huntsman.com/advanced_materials
Two-component adhesive systemSCIGRIP UK (Tyne and Wear, U.K.), the company formed as a result of the 2011 merger of IPS Weld-On (U.S.) and Holdtite (U.K.), has introduced SG230HV, a two-component, 10:1 mix ratio adhesive for bonding composite and/or plastic parts with little or no sur-face preparation for marine, transportation and renew-able energy applications. Its features include high viscosity, minimal surface preparation, good weather resistance, toughness and elasticity. www.scigrip.com
Cellulose fi ber-reinforced polypropyleneUPM (Helsinki, Finland), a pulp and paper conglomerate, offered a new product for composites: UPM ForMi is a cellulose fi ber-reinforced polypro-pylene for sustainable injection molding applications. The recycled cellulose fi bers come from the company’s other business endeavors, which include ProFi wood/plastic composites for decking. The ForMi material is recyclable, odorless and available in granular form and customizable colors. www.upm.com/composites
Continuous thermoforming/injection molding processesJacob Plastics Group (Wilhelmsdorf, Germany) showed off two pro-cesses for large-scale production of lightweight automotive structures: FIT-Hybrid, an effi cient process for making hollow parts (a 2011 JEC Innovation Award winner); and SpriForm, a method for building au-tomotive crash structures by combining, in a continuous process, ther-moplastic injection-molded parts with thermoformed parts made from continuously fi ber-reinforced thermoplastic. Generally, the company seeks to combine thermoforming of continuous-fi ber preforms/blanks with either injection molding or, sometimes, gas-injection technology in a sequential process that produces three-dimensional, fi ber-reinforced thermoplastic structural parts, such as seat backs and crash structures. www.jacobplastics.com
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ABLE TO HANDLE TEMPERATURES UP TO
437ºF WITH WATER
E TO HANDLEVARIABLETEMPERATURETECHNOLOGY(VARIOTHERM)AVAILABLE FOR RAPID
HEAT COOL
CASE STUDIES: http://www.single-temp.com > Downloads > English > Composites special - Additional documents for the composites sector
Engineered balsa, foam core3A Composites (Sins, Switzerland) attracted much attention with the introduction of Banova, an engi-neered balsa offered in a variety of confi gurations. Banova can consist of multimaterial sheets and panels, balsa fl at grain or end grain or balsa fi bers at any angle in multiple layers
(see photos). This allows the manufacturer to build a core of multilayer balsa with the grain oriented in multiple directions to meet specifi c mechanical loads. www.3acomposites.com
Flax fi ber prepregsProcotex SA (Dottignies, Belgium) showed an array of fl ax fi ber unidi-rectional prepregs for high-performance “eco-composites.” Available with either thermoplastic or thermoset resin matrices, the fl ax prepregs offer a lower density than glass fi ber as well as high vibration damping, low abrasion and obvious recyclability for reduced environmental impact. The company also offers kenaf, jute, sisal and cocos fi bers; and recycled fi -
bers and fi ber blends. Procotex reports a capacity of 30,000 metric tonnes (66.14 million lb) of recycled textile fi bers per year. www.procotex.com
Overhead machining centersTo increase productivity and accuracy for high-speed machining of large pieces, Le Créneau Industriel (Annecy-le-Vieux, France) has extended its line of CRENO UGV 5 AXES machining centers with an overhead moving gantry fitted with linear motors, allowing x- and y-axis feed rates up to 60m/min (197 ft/min). Features include long and accurate z-axis travel (more than 2,200 mm/87 inches); standard x-axis travel of 4,000 mm/157 inches to 16,000 mm/630 inches (or more); and stan-dard y-axis travel of 2,000 mm to 5,800 mm (78.7 inches to 228.4 inches). The two movements of the 5-axis head are driven by brush-less motors equipped with heavy-duty epicycloidal reducers. The CRENO centers are said to be well suited for high-speed machining of compos-ite materials. www.creneau.fr
Glass fi ber for acidic, high-modulus applicationsPPG Industries (Pittsburgh, Pa.) introduced INNOFIBER specialty glass composition fi ber and presented recent laboratory test results from its
Shelby, N.C., fi berglass R&D facility. The tests used rovings that paired INNOFIBER glass composi-tion fi bers and proprietary sizing chemistry. The results displayed how these products exceed the corrosion-resistance and modulus-performance limits of standard E-glass. The company says bo-ron-free INNOFIBER CR glass fi ber provides good corrosion resistance in acidic environments, and high-modulus INNOFIBER XM glass fi bers offer better stiffness and lighter weight for applications that use highly oriented fi ber reinforcements. www.ppg.com
Polyamide prepregs and preconsolidated platesRhodia Engineering Plastics (Lyon, France) introduced Evolite by Technyl, an extension of its range of Technyl polyamide compounds. This series of continuous fi ber-reinforced materials is available in recyclable matrix, preimpregnated fabrics and preconsolidated plates. Compatible fi -bers include carbon, glass and aramid. It features good crash resistance, high compressive and ten-sile strength and good fl uidity. End-use markets include automotive and transportation, construc-tion and sports and leisure. www.rhodia.com
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MUST-ATTEND EVENTS FOR ANYONE IN THE COMPOSITES INDUSTRY
SAE 2012 Economics of Composites20 June 2012Torino Incontra Conference CentreTorino, ItalyAttend.* Exhibit. Sponsor.www.sae.org/economics
SAE 2012 Design, Tooling andManufacturing of Composites21-22 June 2012Torino Incontra Conference CentreTorino, ItalyAttend.* Exhibit. Sponsor.www.sae.org/dtmc
Brought to you by SAE International, these events are bringing both North American and European composites audiences together like never before.
Take-away exclusive information regarding:
*Register for both events to receive a discount. Visit the event websites to learn more!
Register now for SAE International Professional Development courses in Torino, Italy.Multiple courses scheduled 18 – 22 June at the Politecnico Campus at LingottoSee the complete schedule at www.sae.org/training/europeseminars
Hot water mold-temperature controlSINGLE Temperiertechnik GmbH (Hochdorf, Germany) introduced hot-water mold-temperature control systems rated up to 225°C/437°F. Touted as more energy effi cient than hot oil and electric heaters and ovens, the fl uid-based controller is reportedly better than oven curing because an oven’s cooling phase offers no room for active support. In the case of ther-moplastic composites, the active alternating temperature technology (ATT) switches between two circuits with cooling fl uid of different temperatures and heats or cools the mold, ensuring adequate cooling during the fi lling phase and suffi cient heat during cure. www.single-temp.de
Milled glass fi ber3B-the fi breglass co. (Battice, Belgium) spot-lighted MF 01 ER (Eco-Responsible), a powder grade of Advantex milled fi bers. The product is intended to reinforce engineering thermo-plastics and thermosets and provide high-modulus and greater dimensional stability and shrinkage control. It can be used in a variety of applications in the automotive, electrical and electronic and consumer goods markets. www.3b-fi breglass.com
High-temperature core materialsSpheretex (Hilden, Germany) presented its new high-temperature core material in three grades: SBC HT, S HT and tex HT. Designed with higher temperature resistance (150°C/302°F on a long-term basis) during the production process, the new HT cores are compatible with all resin types, particularly epoxy and polyester foam, and re-portedly offer greater compressive strength than competing products. www.spheretex.com
Snap-cure prepregsUmeco (Heanor, Derbyshire, U.K.) is developing an automated system for high-volume production of automotive structures. It uses cut and kitted carbon fi ber/epoxy prepregs that are placed in a preforming tool and loaded into a compression molding machine for processing. The system can handle all types of prepreg but is focused on us-ing Umeco’s Dform products. Umeco plans to market a range of prepregs that will snap-cure in three to four minutes in a press-forming process, which puts the system in line with auto produc-tion volume requirements. www.umeco.com
Carbon-fi ber sheet molding compoundZoltek Companies Inc. (St. Louis, Mo.), and Magna Exteriors and In-teriors (Grabill, Ind.), announced that they have collaborated on a low-cost carbon fi ber sheet molding compound (SMC). The new product, EpicB-lendSMC EB CFS-Z, combines Zoltek’s Panex 35 commercial-grade fi ber (50 percent fi ber, by weight) with Magna’s EpicBlendSMC formulations. Intend-ed for a range of lightweight parts for the automotive, commercial truck and other markets, the product will be offered directly to molders. CFS-Z is particularly suitable for electric vehicle battery enclosures due to its report-edly excellent electromagnetic interference shielding. www.zoltek.com
Marketplace
Marketplace
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Available in various temperature ranges
Fax Website: http//:www.generalsealants.comE-mail: [email protected]
Used world wide by composite manufacturers
Distributed by:AIRTECH INTERNATIONAL INC.
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The Companies of North CoastCOMMITTED TO ADVANCING THE COMPOSITE INDUSTRY
www.nctm.com www.northcoastcomposites.com
Phone (216) 398-8550
TESTING |
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Showcase
Product & LiteratureSHOWCASE
INDEX OF ADVERTISERS
COMPOSITE CHILLERSPerfect for controlling resin viscosity in composite forming by cooling lay-up during cure cycle. Also, effectively used for reducing tack on pre-preg during lay-up if required. We also offer a complete line of EPONTM Epoxy Resins/Curing Agents and a new family of PTFE Release Agents.For technical information and sample, call 203 743-4447
MILLER-STEPHENSON CHEMICAL COMPANY, INC.California – Illinois – Connecticut - Canada203 743-4447 Fax 203 791-8702 e-mail: [email protected]
A&P Technology Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Airtech International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Amerimold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
AOC, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Baltek Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CCP Composites US . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Chem-Trend Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Hexcel Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Interplastic Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
NAMMO Composites Solutions LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
North Coast Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Precision Quincy Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Pro-Set Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Ross, Charles & So Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
SAE International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Saertex USA LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Back Cover
Single Temperature Controls, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Spheretex America Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Technical Fibre Products Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
TR Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
TRAM3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Tricel Honeycomb Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Wisconsin Oven Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover
Wyoming Test Fixtures Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Zyvax Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Cover
Engineering Insights
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Careful analysis ensures success of buried composite piping for industrial applications.
nderground pipe may seem mundane and unglamorous, but when those buried pipes are very large and specifi ed in composite materials, design and fabrication is a big chal-
lenge. Although large-diameter composite pipes (48-inch/1,200-mm diameter and larger) have been specifi ed as an alternative to thermoplastic, steel, iron and concrete pipe since the 1960s, a few spectacular failures during the 1980s forced the industry to take a hard look at its design process, notes Chris Renoud, professional engineer and CEO of Fiberglass Structural Engineering Inc. (FSE, Bellingham, Wash.). “Our corrosion industry has had a number of failures when compared to other composite applications,” he points out. “Underground composite piping is a growing application, great for many sectors, but good design is critical for success.”
FSE specializes in developing designs and specifi cations for proj-ect owners, who then procure pipes from third-party fabricators, Renoud explains. Fabrication techniques are typically standard heli-cal fi lament winding or “continuous” winding (see “Learn More,” p. 48) but can include hand layup. Th e pipe sizes oft en exceed 10 ft /3m in diameter. Th e destinations for large pipe that will be buried below grade include power and chemical plants, oil refi neries, desaliniza-tion projects and cooling-tower installations.
UNDERGROUND PIPE DESIGN PROCESS
A recent confi dential project involved a design for about 5,000 linear ft /1,540m of 13-ft /4,000-mm diameter piping to convey seawater for a process cooling system at a Middle Eastern petrochemical plant. FSE’s principal engineer, Randy Rapoza, explains that composites were a
Designing for high
pressure
LARGE-DIAMETER UNDERGROUND PIPE
given. Th ey off ered a favorable installed cost and neither coated steel pipe, cathodically protected steel pipe nor concrete pipe could match the 50-year maintenance-free service life of composites in a corrosive environment created by seawater, internally, and underground burial, externally. And, because fi berglass pipe has a smoother inside surface than other materials and accumulates no scale or deposits over time, it could permit a greater water fl ow over the life of the project.
Th e pipe was to be buried 7 ft /2.15m below grade and butt-and-strap joined. Th e joined pipe, therefore, would be restrained — that is, the pressure of the surrounding soil would lock the pipe in place with friction, limiting any movement without having to use thrust blocks (fi xed structures that hold pipes in alignment). Rapoza stress-es that the soil forces on the buried pipe are not trivial.
“You have to take into consideration the entire situation — the na-tive soil conditions, the depth of water table, the temperature of the fl u-ids that the piping will convey as well as ambient temperature during installation, traffi c loads and so on. Loads due to burial, including those caused by diff erential soil settlement that causes the pipe to bend, far outweigh the typical forces on a pipe in an above-ground installation.”
Th e basis for the design was a widely used guide supplied by the American Water Works Assn. (AWWA), titled Fiberglass Pipe Design (a/k/a Manual M45). Th e manual provides equations that take into account the velocity and pressure of the conveyed fl uid, head loss due to turbulent fl ow, water hammer, buckling pressure and surge pressure. But, explains Rapoza, that basic concept was supplemented with other calculations to cover a host of site-specifi c design condi-tions that can’t be addressed by the M45 guide, including soil type and density, depth of cover and allowable vehicular traffi c load. Sometimes FSE also must consider severe live loads from cranes and construction equipment in the calculations, which the backfi ll must
Large-diameter composite pipe intended for burial underground requires
careful design to account for a range of load conditions that can impact
performance. Completed large-diameter pipe (below) awaits installation at a
project site.
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ENGINEERING CHALLENGE:
For a yet-to-be-selected fabricator, design large-diameter, corrosion-resistant, fi lament-wound composite pipe with suffi cient strength to resist burial and settlement loads as well as internal pressure and axial loads due to restrained contraction, without failing.
DESIGN SOLUTION:
Supplement industry pipe guidelines with calculations and fi nite ele-ment analysis that account for job-specifi c conditions, and then design ply schedules for both conventional and continuous fi lament winding processes that will yield comparable fi nished-pipe performance.
Illustration | Karl Reque
support, as well as average and maximum service temperatures, shape factor (or defl ection due to bending stress from soil loads) and more. “It’s a fairly extensive calculation process,” he reports. Ultimately, this process led to an interim solution for the pipe wall thickness and stiff ness that was necessary to handle water pressure loads and to prevent any buckling or excessive defl ection and stress under the project burial and operating conditions.
Th e designers then employed fi nite element analysis (FEA) meth-ods for detailed stress analysis, combining hoop and axial loads, to verify the pipe design. FSE uses ANSYS Inc. (Canonsburg, Pa.) for FE modeling soft ware. Depending on the pipe’s modeled perfor-mance at the calculated wall thickness under project conditions, Rapoza says designers might have to go back through the calcula-tions to tweak the design, optimizing thickness and laminate design or increasing axial stiff ness to meet the performance goals. “Th e analysis oft en requires several iterations,” he says.
Th e fi nal calculated wall thickness for the 13-ft /4m diameter pipe was a considerable 1.8 inches/46 mm for pipe sections that were 39 ft /12m in length. Th e design pressure was 10 bar (gauge)/145 psi
(the operating pressure would be 8 bar/116 psi), and the design tem-perature was 150°F/66°C, although the operating temperatures were expected to be around 115°F/46°C.
Key to the analysis and design of the glass reinforcement sched-ule was “restrained thermal contraction and restrained contraction from the Poisson eff ect of internal pressure,” says Renoud, who points out that these oft en-overlooked conditions were the cause of many early composite pipe failures. When a pipe is buried in hot am-bient conditions and then operated (or shut down) at a lower tem-perature, he explains, it wants to contract, but it is axially restrained by the soil and can’t move. Similarly, when the pipe tends to expand in the hoop direction due to pressure, it tries to contract in the axial direction but cannot, resulting in signifi cant axial forces. Composite pipe, unlike steel or concrete, tends to be weakest in the axial direc-tion, says Rapoza. “Th e tensile stress can literally tear the pipe apart.” To account for these restrained loads, he explains, suffi cient axial fi bers were specifi ed in the design to ensure adequate axial tensile strength in the pipe wall. Additionally, the installation instructions specify the maximum temperature at the time of burial to control
Random chop
±55° fiber angles
Pipe produced via standard fi lament winding maximizes axial strength with strongly angled bidirectional layup
Hoop fi ber
Pipe made via continuous fi lament winding combines hoop and axial fi ber with layers of chopped glass mat
Axial fi ber
Wall thickness = 1.8 inches/46 mm of E-glass/vinyl ester
Inner wall is faced with C-glass veil and chopped strand to form a resin-rich containment layer
Continuous pipe support structure
Winding head
FIBERGLASS STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING’S LARGE-DIAMETER PIPE DESIGNS
13 ft/4,000 mm
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Read this article online | http://short.compositesworld.com/MNcecW34.
Read more about continuous fi lament winding online in “Making continuous composite pipe” | http://short.compositesworld.com/O5lwNelt.
Technical EditorSara Black is CT’s technical editor and has served on the CT staff for 12 [email protected]
the diff erential between the installation temperature and the pipe’s minimum use temperature (60°F/15.5°C, in this case).
COMPOSITES MEET CONDITIONS
Next, designers specifi ed E-glass, and a vinyl ester from Ashland Performance Materials (Dublin, Ohio), with a fi ber-to-resin ratio of about 60 percent by weight. FSE’s senior project manager Steve Gaber says vinyl ester off ers better corrosion resistance and is “more fl exible and provides better strain properties than a polyester.”
FSE then developed the laminate architecture. Rapoza explains that because the fabricator had not yet been chosen, it was unknown whether standard helical winding or continuous winding methods would be used. “We actually developed one specifi cation covering both methods, each about equal in thickness and with ... materials adjusted so that pipe performance would be the same, regardless.”
For standard fi lament winding, in which a fi xed male mandrel equal in length to each pipe length is rotated by a headstock and tail-stock, an initial C-glass surfacing veil (0.01 inch/0.25 mm in thick-ness) would enable a resin-rich inner surface, followed by one ply of chopped strand mat to complete a chemical-resistant and fl exible pressure containment barrier. Th en, 35 cycles of E-glass fi ber would
be wound (from the head to the tail and back) at a ±55° winding angle (with the pipe’s horizontal axis at 0°) to maximize axial strength, says Rapoza.
For pipe made in a continuous wind-ing process, the reinforcement spec was considerably diff erent. Th e same C-glass veil was followed by a layer of random chopped glass mat, then more than 100 plies of alternating hoop-wound glass fi bers (90° winding angle) and chopped glass, with multiple interspersed plies of unidirectional (0°) tapes. Th e hoop fi ber
contains the internal pressure loads and provides the stiff ness nec-essary to resist defl ection or “ovaling” due to burial loads. Th e uni tapes, applied by hand or machine wound, add axial strength to resist the previously noted restrained thermal and Poisson loads and other axial loads.
To ensure that pipe lengths would be consistent with the specifi -cations, FSE developed testing and quality-assurance guidelines for the fabricator. Samples would be taken periodically and tested for thickness, glass content (ASTM D2584), correct ply sequence, hoop tensile strength, hoop modulus of elasticity, axial tensile strength and axial modulus of elasticity and stiff ness (per guidance provided in AWWA C950). A key FSE specifi cation concerned the joining of pipes during installation. Rapoza and Gaber emphasize that FSE’s preferred method for this project type is a wet-laminated butt joint, using glass woven roving and chopped strand mat. “If correctly completed, the joint will be stronger than the pipe itself,” Gaber claims. FSE off ers its clients the option of onsite QA surveillance of joining operations and can recommend contractors with experience in both joinery and repairs.
To ensure a consistent, predictable backfi ll, FSE specifi ed a clean, well-graded soil and backfi ll with a density of no more than 120 lb/ft 3, says Rapoza. Although some settlement is inevitable, he recom-mends that engineers design for no more than 20 mm/0.8 inch of settlement in each 20m/65 ft of pipe length.
Concludes Renoud, “A lot of these design steps are oft en over-looked by project engineers and designers. Everyone in the industry will benefi t by recognizing that these large structures must be care-fully engineered.” | CT |
These screen shots show FE analysis of large-diameter pipe at a T-junction
where two pipes will be joined using wet-laminating techniques.
A sample section of large-diameter fi lament-
wound pipe is tested in the laboratory for axial
tensile properties.
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Maximum Defl ection 3mm
Maximum Hoop Stress inHeader pipe 112 MPa
SAERTEX GermanyE-Mail: [email protected]
SAERTEX Stade, GermanyE-Mail: [email protected]
SAERTEX FranceE-Mail: [email protected]
SAERTEX PortugalE-Mail: [email protected]
SAERTEX USAE-Mail: [email protected]
SAERTEX South AfricaE-Mail: [email protected]
SAERTEX IndiaE-Mail: [email protected]
SAERTEX China E-Mail: [email protected]
www.saertex.com
WIND ENERGYBOAT AND SHIPBUILDING
RAILWAYAUTOMOTIVE
AEROSPACEPIPE RELINING
CIVIL ENGINEERINGRECREATION
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MULTIAXIALSCLOSED MOULD REINFORCEMENTS
SELF ADHESIVE FABRICSKITTED-FABRICS
PREFORMSCOMPOSITE PARTS
High Performance Materials.