Composites 4.0: Digital transformation, adaptive production, new paradigms
An evolving landscape of automation, sensors and AI software is not an end, but a means to achieve the cost, quality, efficiency and agility required for future manufacturing.
Ginger Gardiner
Senior Editor, CompositesWorld
Composites help take the waste out of wastewater
The role of composites for meeting California’s 21st century water needs.
Composite deck reduces river ship draft
SAERTEX worked with shipbuilder Neptun Werft to build a composite superstructure to cut weight 45% vs. steel in a river cruiser.
Removing barriers to lightweighting ships with composites
EU consortia propel large demonstrators, new technology and affordable certification.
CW's Top Shops puts operations in perspective
The inaugural CW Top Shops benchmarking survey is designed to help composites fabricators understand how efficient their manufacturing operations are.
Tackling the Aerospace Supplier’s Dilemma: Scalability
Automation and robotics can go a long way toward increasing capacity and growing a business dedicated to aerospace manufacturing. But Trinity Precision has learned that refining the indirect and unseen aspects of its operations can be just as valuable.
Composites in the race to space
Advanced materials use in current and upcoming NASA missions.
Scott Francis
Contributing Editor, CompositesWorld
The state of recycled carbon fiber
As the need for carbon fiber rises, can recycling fill the gap?
Highlights: Composites Convention 2019
Highlights from the Composites Convention 2019, June 12-13, in Stade, Germany, organized by CFK Valley e.V. and Carbon Composites e.V, and the German Aerospace Center’s 5th Colloquium on Production Technology, on May 15, in Augsburg.
Nanomaterial types and definitions
Nanomaterials range in size, material, characteristics and usage in composites manufacturing. Provided here are types and definitions of those currently available.
Nanomaterials: Products, supply chain mature for next-gen composites
Development spans 3D and thermoplastic nanocomposites, nano-CMCs for hypersonics and nanomaterials safety and toxicity.
2019 Paris Air Show: Highlights
The 2019 Paris Air Show may have lacked the glamour of a new aircraft program announcement, but the composites industry represented is clearly gearing up for next-generation aerospace manufacturing.
Big additive machines tackle large molds
In commercial aerocomposites fabrication, molds reign supreme, but they are expensive. Large-format additive manufacturing systems are poised to make production-ready molds quickly and affordably.
Building bridges with composites
The growing role of advanced materials in infrastructure.
Scott Francis
Contributing Editor, CompositesWorld
Automated, in-situ inspection a necessity for next-gen aerospace
Inline inspection technologies continue to evolve with the aim of providing faster and more accurate part inspection.
Fiber sizing, tow spreading and the quest for encapsulation
Fiber sizing is easily overlooked by composites fabricators, but it will be increasingly important to optimization of fiber performance.
Spirit AeroSystems invests in qualification program with Toray prepreg
The world’s largest aerospace tier supplier seizes the opportunity to develop its own allowables for a carbon fiber prepreg, setting an important precedent.
HP-RTM for serial production of cost-effective CFRP aerostructures
Merging automotive process and tooling with aerospace quality to meet increasing production rates.
Large, high-volume, infused composite structures on the aerospace horizon
Infused carbon fiber composite structures are not new, but they have never been built at the rates anticipated for next-generation, single-aisle aircraft. It is a daunting prospect — but a feasible one.
Tackling the aerospace supplier’s dilemma: Scalability
Automation and robotics can go a long way toward increasing capacity and growing a business dedicated to aerospace manufacturing. But Trinity Precision has learned that refining the indirect and unseen aspects of its operations can be just as valuable.
Composites' role in seawater reverse osmosis desalination
Part two of a two-part series on the role of composites for meeting California’s 21st-century water needs.
Donna Dawson
Mission critical: An additive manufacturing breakthrough in commercial aviation
The GE9X is the first commercial aircraft engine to reach production with significant additive content. The story of GE’s accomplishment and why it matters.
Thermoplastic composites: Poised to step forward
The evolving role of thermoplastic materials and processes and their future in next-generation commercial aircraft.
Tooling technologies positioned for speed, control
Tooling is one of the most rapidly evolving segments of the composites industry, as new technologies and processes like 3D printing, OOA infusion, thermoplastic composites reshape how molds are made.
Mission Critical: An AM Breakthrough in Commercial Aviation
The GE9X is the first commercial aircraft engine to reach production with significant additive content. The story of GE’s accomplishment and why it matters.
Smarter, integrated data for ATL/AFP
More than helping to eliminate dry runs and costly errors, AFP/ATL software is beginning to benefit the whole product lifecycle through the interconnectedness of the digital thread.
The still-promised potential of basalt fiber composites
Although the long-anticipated market surge in basalt fiber-reinforced polymer composites remains largely in the future, basalt fiber manufacturers are making headway over the technical and market hurdles toward large-scale application.