JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #76 - October/November 2012 - 40

awards
A High-Speed press cure for a High-Speed Race Car
Swift has taken a complex load-bearing, aerodynamic composite structure that traditionally required autoclave manufacturing and developed an out-of-autoclave press mold process that co-cures the external skins and internal spar structure in one cure cycle. This shortened process produces structures with excellent outer mold line repeatability, reduces production time by half and thereby reduces manufacturing costs by 30 percent compared to conventional three-piece autoclave processes.

official partner

Process
Winner: Swift Engineering, Inc (USA) Partnership Network: Richmond Aircraft Products, Inc (USA)

Modern formula racecars are constructed primarily of carbon fiber composite materials. While performance expectations are extremely high, vehicle development and production windows are relatively short. Since accidents are a common occurrence on race day, many highly engineered composite components are viewed by race teams as commodities. To cope with manufacturing bottlenecks associated with autoclave dependence, Swift Engineering can now rapidly produce racecar wings from an outof-autoclave press mold process.

RecyclamineT™ epoxy hardener technology allows to design and produce fully recyclable epoxy-based composite products
Connora Technologies has re-conceptualized the manufacture of non-recyclable plastics. Through molecular design it re-engineered thermosetting plastics to be completely recyclable. With the debut of its Recyclamine Epoxy Hardener Series, Connora introduces a patented technology that can be used with any epoxy resin system to create recyclable composites. Recyclamine is a complete sustainable solution for the thermosetting composite market. The technology creates value by reducing costs during production, extracting value at end-of-use or end-of-product lifespan, addressing consumer/industry pressure for proactive environmental responsibility and meeting current and future regulatory requirements.

Recycling
Winner: Connora Technologies (USA) Partnership Network: Entropy Resins (USA), Johnson Controls (USA), Panslavia Chemicals (USA), PPG Fiber Glass (USA), Völkl Sports (Germany)

VERICUT Composite Paths for Engineering (VCPe) improves Automated Fiber Placement
VCPe presents a subset of choices in its user interface. Those features associated with post-processing and writing automated fiber placement (AFP) NC programs are not available. However, VCPe files containing AFP tape courses are compatible with standard VCP and can be used as a starting point for AFP off-line NC programming. VCPe can be upgraded to standard VCP. By producing actual AFP tape courses that could be used to program AFP fabrication equipment in the workshop, users can measure and evaluate the effects of AFP path trajectory, material steering, surface curvature, course convergence and other process constraints as they would be applied in manufacturing. The software also provides produce ability analysis of the fiber angle based on the curvature of the part, and overlap and gaps needed for structural analysis. Tape course geometry can be written to various computer-aided design formats for further evaluation by the user’s existing analysis methods and tools. Experiments to determine

Software
Winner: CGTECH (USA)

producibility can be performed long before the design has been sent to manufacturing, and even before it is known what type of AFP equipment will be used.

40 jec composites magazine / No76 October - November 2012

http://www.cytec.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #76 - October/November 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #76 - October/November 2012