Show Stoppers SAMPE '98 8-3-98

August 3, 1998 Design News

SHOW STOPPERS

Highlights from SAMPE '98

Composites come of age

What do building golf clubs and bridges have in common? If you attended this year's annual SAMPE (Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering) show in Anaheim, CA (May 31 to June 4), the answer soon became perfectly clear to the estimated 6,000 registrants. On the exhibit floor you would have witnessed attendees gaining "hands-on" experience working with composite materials by producing their own golf clubs. The steps required to make the clubs included cutting, prepreg preparation, wrapping a prepreg on a mandrel, shrink wrapping, oven curing, shaft grinding and finishing, and bonding the head and the grip. For a fee of $55, the successful participants, some 150 in all, took home their own hand-crafted putters.

Move over one aisle and you couldn't miss the excitement at an exhibit that featured the design of all-composite bridges. The attraction revolved around the "Composite Bridge Building Contest," which attracted 37 entries this year. First began as a local high school program by the New Jersey Chapter, the contest has grown into an "any and all" competition. Center-load testing was performed on all models, with the most weight-efficient entries awarded prizes. The winners: Matt Fenske of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Hans Newbert of Programmed Composites Inc. won in the "Professional Class" category, while a team from the University of Washington took the top honors in the "University Class."

Perhaps of even more interest was what keynoter Zsolt Rumy, CEO of the Zoltek Companies, had to tell a full-house audience. Rumy predicted that the sale of carbon fibers will expand from some 26 million lbs last year to as much as 100 million lbs by the year 2000. He attributes this to increased capacity throughout the industry and better processing technology--all leading to the possibility of bringing carbon fiber prices down from $6.50 per lb today to $5 at the turn of the century. Here is a sampling of materials debuting at SAMPE that should help make this possible:

Materials make a difference

3M Adhesive Div. introduced a 350F-curing prepreg, Scotchply^TM SP510, that enhances the company's PR 500 RTM (resin transfer molding) material by improving unidirectional compression properties. It comes in carbon and glass reinforcement for use in primary and secondary structural applications (M)?A&P Technology announced two products: broad goods-unidirectional triaxial braided reinforcement, and CONNEX^TM net-shaped braids for threaded connections (M))?Advanced Composites Group debuted a new range of resin systems for RTM, VARTM, and related processes with transfer and cure temperatures as low as 95 and 150F, respectively, and new uncured silicone elastomers in calendared sheet form, LTE16-70T and LTE16-40B, for composite tooling and processing applications (M)?Airtech Advanced Materials Group unveiled its Stretchion 800 vacuum bagging film that "never becomes brittle, even under low humidity conditions" (M) ?Akzo Nobel Fortafil Fibers displayed the "next generation" of heavy-tow carbon fiber said to be the new performance standard for commercial structural applications (M)?Aldila Materials Technology showed its new Type A430-46K line of carbon fiber, chopped carbon fiber, and carbon-fiber prepreg high-strength PAN-based materials supplied as a sized 46K filament tow treated to improve bond strength (M) ?Ciba Specialty Chemicals introduced two cyanate ester resins for high-performance aerospace and electronics applications, XU 71787.02 and XU 7187.07, that exhibit "excellent moisture resistance, dimensional stability, and strong thermal performance;" the Araditer PZ 3781 water-based epoxy thermoset resin system for fiberglass sizing; and a soon-to-be-commercialized hardener/accelerator with a greater latency period (M) ?Courtaulds Aerospace highlighted its Desothaner HS second-generation polyurethane and anti-chafe topcoats that feature low viscosity, long wet edge, and low sensitivity to humidity, and its Sempen^TM applicators for the convenient storage, mixing, and application of pre-measured, multi-component coating materials (M)?Culver City Composites announced PETI-5, a high-temperature resin now available in limited quantities for NASA's High Speed Civil Transport Program (M) ?Diamonex Performance Products featured its Diamonshield line of diamond-like carbon and super-hard coatings for soft substrates (M) ?Exceed Composite Technology introduced its Hi-temp cyanate epoxies and resins for up to 800F service temperatures (M) ?General Plastics Mfg. spotlighted its economical FR-7 Series foams for low-temperature, less-critical applications, and FR-3000 Series foams for high-temperature applications (M) ?Hexcel Composites featured its Hexceramic^TM high-temperature, industrial ceramic prepreg with alumina-filled ceramic precursor resin/aluminosilicate fibers that cure into a crosslinked thermoset system (M)?JPS Glass and Industrial Fabrics announced the development of a direct-size yarn that will make filament winding available in the same finishes as woven fabric (M) ?National Nonwovens unveiled its Composite Structural Core and processing technology that aligns the fibers to produce a rigid, uniform core with thermal and acoustical insulation (M) ?Quantum Composites introduced its QC-2130 phenolic sheet molding compound (SMC) with low flammability properties for aircraft and public transportation applications (M)?Richmond Aircraft Products debuted VACPAKr A6200, a fluoropolymer release film for use with epoxies, phenolics, polyesters, BMIs, and other resin systems, and Rohacellr XT high-temperature (450F/232C) structural PMI foam for sandwich cores (M)?RogersCorp. introduced an extended range of high-performance PORONr silicone and urethane materials for special gasket, seal, and vibration-damping applications (M)?SIA Adhesives announced a new line of water based nitrile phenolic primers that will hit the marketplace this month (M)?Trans Western Chemical displayed its Tufpoxy^TM rubber-modified epoxy that features a rapid-curing anhydride with long pot life, and Tufpoximide^TM rubber-modified epoxy-polyimide with a glass transition temperature as high as 600F (M)?And Zeon Chemicals announced it will debut sometime this fall a line of elastomers "functionalized" with carboxylic acid groups for unidirectional prepreg systems. Both liquid and particulate epoxy functionalized modifier are incorporated into a base epoxy system, requiring no pre-reaction, and impregnated into unidirectional carbon fibers. Results show the modifiers significantly reduce formulating time and materials.