Under the heading ‘Connecting business in the composites industry’, Composites Europe will be inviting designers, engineers, technicians and buyers from the composites industry, as well as the application industries dealing with composites, to visit Stuttgart from 19-21 September 2017. The tradeshow will focus on lightweight construction, resource efficiency, and multi-material design.
Our exhibitor roundup begins with Honeycomb core specialist, ThermHex (hall 6, stand E12). Its ThermHex production process for PP honeycomb cores ensures economical production of sandwich components. The high level of automation of the production allows the use of honeycomb cores even in applications where they have not been used yet. As a result, there are significantly lower production costs compared with other competitors. ThermHex offers the PP lightweight construction material in various versions: core thicknesses of 3.5 to 28mm, cell sizes of 3 to 9.6mm and densities of 60 to 120kg/m³ can be realised.
Elsewhere, injection moulding machine and press manufacturer, Engel (hall 4, stand D24) will present its latest projects at the show, including HP-RTM and SMC, through the processing of semi-finished thermoplastic products to reactive thermoplastic processes. These new composite processes are said to pave the way for large-scale production. One highlight will be its processing and functionalisation of continuous-fibre-reinforced thermoplastic semi-finished products using the Engel organomelt process. The first major series applications of this technology in the automotive industry will be launched shortly.
In the same hall, Roth Composite Machinery (hall 4, stand E42) will unveil its special-purpose mechanical engineering exhibits. The company plans, designs and manufactures aggregates, machines and entire production lines across the business areas of filament winding and prepreg, pleating and coating and brushes and brooms.
Chem-Trend (hall 6, stand E08) will present its latest generation of release agents and cleaning agents for improving the productivity and quality of moulding processes using composite materials. These speciality processing aids are said to meet the demands of producing quality composite materials for applications in automobile, aerospace and wind energy market sectors. During the show, Chem-Trend will highlight its Chemlease and Zyvax product portfolios that are designed to optimise composite industrial applications from fibre-reinforced plastics to glass fibre-reinforced plastics and advanced composites.
Moving on, elastomer materials specialist, Gummiwerk KRAIBURG (hall 6, stand C23) will present its elastomer KRAIBON, which is said to offer features that improve sound insulation, weight reduction, impact protection and splintering protection of carbon components. At the same time, its use reduces elastomer processing in FRP components and hybrid composites to a single process step. This gives manufacturers greater potential to further optimise the efficiency of their production. KRAIBON enables new product features and contributes to cost reduction in FRP processing. The advantage: the non-crosslinked KRAIBURG rubber prepared on a thin film cures with the fibre reinforced material in a single work step. The result is a direct, process-optimised bond of FRP and elastomer.
Finally, Technical Fibre Products (TFP) (hall 6, stand E54) will be exhibiting its nonwoven solutions for advanced composites at show. On display will be materials from TFP’s Optiveil, Optimat and Tecnofire ranges, specifically designed for use in composites. These materials can fulfil a number of functions in an advanced composite structure. Also on display will be the latest addition to TFP’s range of thermoplastic veils which are designed to increase composite interlaminar toughness. The new development is a high-performance veil made entirely from polyimide (fibre and binder), providing the advantage of chemical resistance combined with high thermal stability.
