K-Factor is the New Composite X-Factor
New nanotube K-Factor
A plethora of companies are pushing the nanotechnology market to new heights. But individuals such as Darren Boyce are finding their own ways toward innovation.
Boyce has single-handedly developed the K-Factor, a customizable process designed to use carbon nanotubes to create a heating enhancement for resin.
Boyce came up the idea when he was working with RTM automotive parts. “With really complex RTM parts, there’s a chance you’ll trap air inside the mold when you inject it. I wanted to watch the resin inside the mold as it flowed and direct it by a vacuum through different portions of the mold and pull the resin in two directions,” he says.
“When you put the nanotubes in the resin at a very low loading, under 1 percent, you get the conduction while still maintaining the properties of the resin. I thought I could put a slightly higher amount of resin in and have better conduction,” he says. After further experimentation, he came up with a range that had enough conduction to use as a heater. “If you were to flow current through it, it would have enough resistance to generate heat but enough conductivity to allow electrical current to flow,” he adds.
After this dispersion, the resistive resin can then be placed into a mold as a resin layer or a reinforcing resin of a laminate. Once cured, the 1 ½ millimeter-length expanded metal conductors are set in place; the end result allows for heating to be generated by application of an AC current.
Boyce’s new system could provide a noticeable time-savings benefit. “If you take a mold and calculate the amount of time needed to gel coat the mold, let it cure, layer fiberglass behind it, let those cure and then demold, you’re talking a full-day operation,” says Boyce. “The K-Factor system can range from an 8-hour time frame to sometimes being able to do it in less than an hour. Which means sometimes you can get 8-10 parts off that same mold just by regulating the heat and curing the laminate.”
Boyce says the biggest challenge is getting people to understand the system itself. He made a big push to sell the product at the American Composites Manufacturers Association’s (ACMA) 2007 convention, but was not successful. “People just walked by and looked, but without a basic understanding, it’s too confusing for them,” says Boyce. “The system is so new and different from what anyone has used; it’s too complicated to understand it at first glance.”
Boyce has poured approximately $200,000 of his own money to develop the process and plans to take the system to the next level—creating a legitimate advertising campaign. Additionally, a few aerospace companies, who Boyce declined to name, are currently using the system in a prepreg fashion for prepreg material or film material that will be a pull-it-off mold to be stuck on as a heater.
