A major new plant to make bioplastics in Clinton, IA, is coming on line and will begin providing material for injection molded food storage containers and cutlery. Metabolix is commercializing Mirel, a plastic made via a sugar-fed fermentation process, in a 50/50 joint venture with Archer Daniels Midland called Telles.
Metabolix expects to bring thermoforming and film products to food contact markets in the second half of this year, servicing applications such as coffee lids, yoghurt cups and film for using storage bags. The company feels there is more than 2 billion pounds of initial potential market for its bioplastic. There are now about 100 prospects that are in various stages of product development with Mirel. Pricing is estimated at $2.25 to $2.75, well above the prices for plastics it seeks to replace.
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.
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