CW Blog

“We were building molds using CNC machined polyurethane foam and hand layup GRP (glass fiber-reinforced plastic), but that approach involved too much labor and waste,” explains György Juhász, owner of Rapid Prototyping (Budapest, Hungary), which bought a CEAD Robot Extruder in December. “We are now 3D printing molds using 30% short glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene and cutting our labor time by 50%.”

Established in 1994, Centro di Ricerche Europeo di Technologie, Design e Materiali (CETMA, Brindisi, Italy) is one of the largest independent research and technology organizations in Italy, with a 4,000-square meter facility and 75 employees. For more than 20 years, CETMA has invested strongly in composites, resulting in a wide range of expertise:

Infrastructure maintenance posed challenges for U.S. Naval Base Guam (NBG) due to lack of services and support on the tiny western Pacific island. NBG handles submarine deployment for the 7th fleet and is home port to four Los Angeles-class attack submarines. External flotation structures called camels prevent damage to vessels and port structures when submersibles are berthed or moored, but conventional materials make them prone to high maintenance and frequent replacement. NBG found a solution with Composite Advantage’s (Dayton, Ohio, U.S.) corrosion-resistant, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite universal submarine camels (see more on the camels’ composite design).

European aerospace R&D consortium Clean Sky provided on April 2 an update on its SORCERER (Structural pOweR CompositEs foR futurE civil aiRcraft) project, which is designed to assess integration of electrical systems within a composite laminate.