CW Blog

Not too long ago, when my three boys were all much younger and in various stages of education and extracurricular activities, my wife and I, like many parents in our position, often found our evenings and weekends consumed by the chore of delivering or retrieving one of our boys to or from school, a practice, a game, a concert or a friend’s house. The logistics of transportation alone were an exercise that was both physically and mentally daunting. And all around us were signs of a family environment that bespoke of the busy-ness in which we lived: Hastily consumed meals, laundry accumulated in intimidating piles, a dishwasher run at least daily, teenage possessions — backpacks, shoes, computers, phones — littering our house. 

Composite materials and innovations are constantly evolving. In addition to industry news, features, blog posts and podcasts, CW also maintains a comprehensive collection of product announcements. This roundup includes links to regular posts concerning the latest products of interest to the composites industry.

Measuring strains during mechanical testing can be challenging, particularly when initially developing the capability. Additionally, there are multiple strain measurement methods to choose from, each with advantages and disadvantages. In this column, we focus on the aspects of strain measurement that are of importance when testing composites, particularly polymer matrix composites (PMCs).

Since SpaceX (Hawthorne, Calif., U.S.) founder and CEO Elon Musk published his Hyperloop Alpha white paper in 2013, the concept of a Hyperloop system has captured the imagination of the public as a possible mode of transportation. Meant to compete with commercial continental air travel between cities separated by approximately 900 miles or less, the concept envisions use of a capsule — also called a “pod” — to transport passengers and freight at high speeds through a tube or series of tubes. The tubes are designed to reduce air resistance using a partial vacuum; the pods, either magnetically levitated or running on air casters, enjoy a nearly frictionless environment and can, theoretically, reach speeds of 600–760 mph (965-1200 km/hr.).

Witnessing the entire process of digitized composite layup usually requires you to travel and visit the facility where the AFP/ATL systems are running. This blog post by Addcomposites walks you through a virtual demo video experience, showing how to program and operate the company’s compact, plug and play AFP-XS system for producing composite products or shapes.

For the very first demo, we are starting with a really basic rectangular shape. The rectangle base laminate is 400 × 450 millimeters in size with a central patch laminate of 100 × 150 millimeters.