JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #36 - October 2007 - 9

in partnership with JEC Composites E-letter Owens Corning sells Huntingdon CFM Business to AGY Owens Corning signed a definitive agreement to sell its CFM (Continuous Filament Mat) business in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, USA, as well as related marble production assets in Anderson, South Carolina, USA, to AGY. Owens Corning previously announced that it planned to sell composite manufacturing facilities located in Battice, Belgium; Birkeland, Norway; and Huntingdon. The divestitures are intended to address regulatory concerns associated with Owens Corning's proposed acquisition of Saint-Gobain's Reinforcement and Composites business. The divestiture is subject to regulatory approval, and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of this year. www.owenscorning.com Northrop Grumman completes acquisition of Scaled Composites, LLC Northrop Grumman Corporation increased its ownership in Scaled Composites, LLC from approximately 40 percent to 100 percent. Scaled Composites is an aerospace and specialty composites development company located in Mojave, California, USA. www.northropgrumman.com facturing at its existing plant in Huntington Beach, California. www.airtechonline.com American composites manufacturers and civil engineers sign an agreement to develop load resistance factor design standard The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA) signed a three year agreement to develop a prestandard for Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) for pultruded Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Composite Structures. The LRFD standard is an important design tool that will help structural engineers and architects use FRP composites in the design of building and trans-portation structures, bringing the benefits of composites, such as its strength to weight ratio, resistance to corrosion, low maintenance and long life cycle, to the forefront of the nation’s infrastructure. www.acmanet.org Bayer MaterialScience to open a second production facility for carbon nanotubes Bayer MaterialScience AG is opening a second production facility for Baytubes®, its carbon nanotubes, at H.C. Starck GmbH in the town of Laufenburg on the German-Swiss border. The new facility has an annual capacity of 30 metric tons. Together with the pilot production plant for Baytubes already located at the site, this now gives Bayer MaterialScience a total annual capacity of 60 metric tons in Laufenburg. Estimates put the market potential for carbon nanotubes (CNT) in the coming years at several thousand metric tons per year. www.bayermaterialscience.de Airtech doubles its plant facilities in California Airtech International Inc announced the expansion of their USA facilities with the addition of a 140,000 sq. ft (13,000 sq. m) distribution facility located in Chino, California. The expansion doubles Airtech’s plant facilities in California. The new building is expected to be operational in September, 2007. The addition of this new distribution facility allows Airtech to increase their manu- New compounding facility in China for Borouge Borouge announced that it plans to develop a compounding facility in China for the manufacture of high performance polypropylene compounds for applications in the automotive and electrical appliance sectors. The new compounding facility will be constructed in the Shanghai area and will have an annual capacity of up to 50,000 tonnes with further expansion pos-sibility. It will be strategically located to take advantage of the supply of Borstar polypropylene from its production plant in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi through an advanced logistics concept and to serve current customers such as VW, GM and PSA in China, future customers in China and other Asian and Middle East markets. The compounding facility will primarily provide polypropylene solutions for the automotive industry including endurance and high impact interior and exterior applications such as dashboards, door panels and bumpers, as well as mineral filled PP and glass fibre reinforced PP for under the hood applications. Value-added compounds for electrical appliances will also initially be part of the manufacturing portfolio. www.borealisgroup.com No36 October - November 2007 / JEC Composites Magazine

http://www.airtechonline.com http://www.northropgrumman.com http://www.owenscorning.com http://www.acmanet.org http://www.bayermaterialscience.de http://www.borealisgroup.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #36 - October 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #36 - October 2007