Here is a great post by MIT's Technology Review on the problems and the future of the Dreamliner. A worthwhile quick read for anyone following the 787 saga.
Photo Credit: Dave Sizer via flicker
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Boeing 787 Dreamliner - Composite Materials
Here is a great post by MIT's Technology Review on the problems and the future of the Dreamliner. A worthwhile quick read for anyone following the 787 saga.
Photo Credit: Dave Sizer via flicker
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Fire Laws and Composite Materials
"Ron Ewing of the Firefighters Association said the trend is to require sprinklers in new construction because of increased use of lightweight and composite materials.Now what he means by "composite materials" is probably different then what we commonly think of composite materials, i.e. FRP.
Older wood-built homes could burn for about 20 minutes before they began to collapse. With new homes, that "burn time" shortens to five minutes because of the different materials used, he said."
Photo Credit: dvs via flicker
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Monday, February 22, 2010
Acceptance of Composite Material
Not everyone is thrilled with composite materials. Watch the video above; a small town complains about a new composite poll installed. Apparently, they would rather have a tilted old wooden pole, treated with harsh heavy metals, and fixated with a steel guy wire; over a clean tapered composite pole that is self supporting and could last over 50 years.
Acceptance of composite materials is slow and steady process...
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Friday, February 19, 2010
New Composite Building System for Haiti
Below is a guest post by James Bancroft discussing a new building technology:
Rexwall/Aqua Homes (Germany) has developed and is producing a lightweight composite honeycomb-core panels used in both houseboats and land based homes. These are large insulated wall panels, glued into place.
I am not a fan of prefabricated panelized housing systems. Each house needs to be individually engineered, offering limited styles and require special assembly skills. Panelization might offer certain benefits for large housing tracts where the houses are all identical but have limited value for custom construction.
The concept for the lightweight composite building blocks allows for a variety, different sizes and architectural styles of structures without detailed architectural plans. Using only three or four standard, off-the-shelf blocks almost any type of structure can be built--local unskilled labor can easily visualize how they "fit together" and can adapt structures to the local topography.
Key to the success of any high tech building material is its adaptability to incorporate local building finishes--creating structures which fit into the historical context, customs and local design traditions--the use of materials which people have grown accustomed to--houses people want and feel comfortable living in.
Below and above are several illustrations demonstrating how this can be achieved using the composite blocks, rough exterior finishes allowing them to be stuccoed with local cementitious materials (Haiti-colorful Caribbean colors), roof panels reflecting local materials and natural flooring coverings.
For building green issues, the central insulating core could use recycled EPS, the buildings can be easily adapted to changing needs (unstacking and rebuilding) or be completely "disassembled" and recycled into new structures.
The next step in exploring and testing potential of the blocks would be to have a composite manufacture produce a number of prototype blocks, assemble them into a model small garden type house--take it apart and reassemble it several times to work out the details.
For more information contact Jim Bancroft at agatha43@comcast.net.
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For more information contact Jim Bancroft at agatha43@comcast.net.
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Thursday, February 18, 2010
Spider Web Composite Armor - Biomimicry
"EntoGenetics has developed a method for transferring a spider's silk production gene into the common silkworm, creating for the first time a commercially viable method of spider silk production. This fiber will provide soldiers with life-saving vests that are tougher, lighter and more comfortable to wear than current vests made of Kevlar and other similar fibers. It will also be used in promising medical, aerospace and composite applications."More Info: NC IDEA
Photo Credit: photofarmer via flicker
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Recycled Glass Bottle Composite Table
Being green was absolutely a theme at the show this year. The demand is originating from the end users of composite products, and this will likely only grow.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Marine Industry and Composite Materials
Once a primary use of composite materials, the marine industry has since been hit hard by the economic downturn. What the President describes, is exactly what boat builders are experiencing right now. Boats are no doubt a luxury good, and right now, people are not buying luxury goods.
With this being said, European luxury yacht builder Emocean just announced plans for a 200m super yacht as seen above. They still need someone to buy the $500-$900 million dollar yacht before they will start building. This thing is a serious haus. 100ft pool, room for two 98ft "day boats", helipad, nightclub, and casino. Yet it will still maintain 28 knots, which is pretty good for a boat that size.
Photo Credit: Emocean
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Monday, February 1, 2010
Green Composite Material Gets Funding
Now the claim of cheaper and lighter may have some merit, but saying their products are stronger then "composites filling landfills today" might be a stretch. Granted, there are many composite materials this product is stronger then, but the composites people think of most often, FRP composites, fiberglass and carbon fiber in particular, it is doubtful a bio-based composite has near the structural properties.
This being said, I am all for green composite materials and bio-based composites. The composite industry and the world needs to move in this direction as a whole. There are a myriad of applications natural fiber reinforcement is ideal for, however, we are still a long ways away from natural fiber replacing fiberglass, carbon, or aramid fibers. Hopefully e2e Materials and their new funding will help lead this charge.
Photo Source: e2e Materials
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