High-Performance Composites + Composites Technology = CompositesWorld

You are reading the very last editorial I'll ever write for High-Performance Composites magazine. That, however, is not bad news. It’s good news. Let me explain.

HPC, as you may know, is one of two magazines we have published over more than 20 years for designers, fabricators and other professionals in the composites industry. HPC has focused primarily on the use of continuous carbon fiber and other advanced fiber-reinforced polymers in the aerospace industry and other high-performance applications. Sister publication, Composites Technology (CT), has focused primarily on the use of polymers reinforced with more economical fibers — mostly glass and plant-derived — in continuous and discontinuous forms in automotive, marine, industrial, consumer and similar applications. Each magazine has been published bi-monthly in alternating months, and editorial offering from those magainzes have also been preseted and preserved here online at the CompositesWorld Web site.

I noted here a few months ago that for most of their history, publishing two magazines, one for the “advanced” composites professional and the other for those involved in “industrial” composites, made sense and was very manageable. Over the past few years, however, as the composites industry has evolved to expand fiber and resin integration across multiple and diverse end-markets and applications, the line that separated HPC and CT has gotten increasingly fuzzy. Finally, that fuzziness has forced us into a new business and editor-ial paradigm. 

And that’s the good news: Starting January 2015, HPC and CT will be merged to create one new monthly publication, called CompositesWorld (CW). As the merger implies, CW’s editorial content will focus on use of all fibers and resins in all end-markets and applications throughout the world. In short, we are growing and changing with the industry we serve.

What does this mean to you, the reader? On that subject, the news is even better. The same great content you’ve come to know and trust remains, but now it will come to you every month. In addition, familiar features — Inside Manufacturing, Focus on Design, Work in Progress, Plant Tours and Market Outlooks — remain as well. And CW will continue to focus on aerospace and other high-performance applications that have always been the hallmark of HPC. But in addition, you will now enjoy our coverage of composite materials and processes employed in end-markets for which there seldom was room in HPC, including the wind energy, marine, automotive, architecture, corrosion, sporting goods and consumer sectors.

The new magazine and its online counterpart have acquired a new name because we want to emphasize its role as your window into the whole world of composites innovation. And that gave us just the excuse we needed to design a new logo (see the image at upper left) and a new look — for that, you will have to wait until the inaugural issue of CW arrives in your mailbox in January. 

It is not without a tinge of regret that we say good-bye to a 20-year friend with the discontinuation of HPC, but we are excited about the launch of CompositesWorld, and we’re confident that you will find its expanded focus and global perspective a key component of your continuing education program in the ever-expanding and ever-evolving composites industry.

Thanks for loyally reading HPC, enjoy reading CW and, as always, let me know how we’re doing and how we can serve your composites information needs most effectively.