SAMPE® 2005 Product Showcase
SAMPE\'s U.S. Symposium and Exhibition highlights technological innovation and market expansion.
By Staff | July 2005
The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) celebrated the Golden Anniversary of its U.S. show May 1-5, 2005, at the Long Beach Convention Center (Long Beach, Calif.). Though somewhat short of SAMPE's prediction — 5,000 attendees — the 4,200 M&P professionals that registered for the Society's 50th Symposium and Exhibition were sufficient to please most exhibitors interviewed by the HPC staff.
SAMPE exhibitors in Long Beach expressed satisfaction at the turnout of 4,200 composites industry professionals at the 2005 show.
Under the banner "New Horizons for Materials and Processing Technology," the SAMPE Symposium attracted 280 technical papers this year. While no match for the 355 presented in 2004 for the Society's much-publicized 60th Anniversary Celebration, the total was considerably higher than the previous all-time high of 236, an indication of good health in the advanced materials sector in general and an encouraging sign of the high level of interest in research activities in the composites field.
SAMPE's Annual M&P Technology Report, presented by the Society's Technical Committees, revealed activity on a number of fronts that promises expanded applications of advanced composite materials in the coming year. Among the most noteworthy was the U.S. Navy's DDX destroyer, which, according to SAMPE technical director Scott Beckwith, is being outfitted with a composite mast and deckhouse, consuming about 226,800 kg to 453,600 kg (500,000 lb to 1 million lb) of carbon/vinyl ester composite per ship. Beckwith also pointed out that carbon-fiber composite tethers and drilling risers for offshore oil installations were finally beginning to catch on with oil and gas exploration companies. These composite replacements for conventional steel tethers and risers represent a huge and, as yet, almost untapped market for suppliers of composite materials. In addition, composite buoyancy units, essentially thick-walled pressure vessels used to counteract the weight of heavy components in floating offshore oil facilities, are expected to become a large market as well. Beckwith also noted that carbon fiber is finding a place in the wind energy market, especially along the axial length of the spars in larger composite turbine blades to reduce weight and improve performance.
SAMPE show attendees examine bridge designs at the annual Bridge Building Contest display on the show floor.
Robert Shinavski of Hypertherm HTC Inc. (Huntington Beach, Calif.) reported in his "Status and Outlook for Ceramic Matrix Composites" presentation that the ceramic matrix composite market is growing at a rate of 7.4 percent per annum, and that the "hot" ceramic composites applications at the moment are ceramic brakes for aircraft, railcars and automobiles. The app given the greatest potential for market impact was brake rotors designed to last the life of the car, a product now standard equipment on the Porsche 911 and 911 Turbo. He also noted increasing interest in the use of ceramic carbon/carbon composites in proposed "Generation 4" nuclear power plants, in which ceramics would increase containment safety in so-called "walk away" plant designs that, in crisis, could be shut down and remain entirely self-contained, eliminating the possibility of health-threatening releases such as the one that occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the U.S.
Composites-intensive Ducati motorcycles at the Airtech exhibit were among the many displays that underscored advanced composite gains in transportation markets.
