DuPont this morning announced an expanded slate of renewably sourced polymers that will contribute to the company’s goal of doubling revenues from sustainable resources to at least $8 billion by 2015. Chief among the new offerings are Sorona EP thermoplastic resins, Hytrel RS thermoplastic elastomers, Biomax RS packaging resins and Selarâ VP breathable films. A key ingredient in Sorona EP is Bio-PDO, which is made at the recently inaugurated DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products facility in Loudon, TN. Bio-PDO replaces petrochemical based 1,3 propanediol (PDO) and/or 1,4-butanediol (BDO) in two glass-reinforced grades of Sorona EP that will initially be available. Sorona EP is compared to polybutylene terephthalate (PBT). Sampling is under way with broader availability expected in 2008. No disclosure was made on beta sites where the material is being tested.
A new process for laser-welding large-scale, steel-aluminum foam sandwich structures for lightweighting ships, which eliminates intermetallic phase, has been demonstrated.
A major advance in repairing composite structures combining robots and lasers bodes well for commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350XWB, which contain composites in large proportions of their structures.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
16 
