The S-97 RAIDER helicopter predecessor, the X2. Photo courtesy of Sikarsky Aircraft.

LORD Corporation in Dayton, Ohio was selected by Sikorsky Aircraft to help build two prototypes of the Sikorsky S-97 RAIDER helicopter. LORD will join a consortium of 35 companies and will manufacture elastomeric bearings and an Active Vibration Control System.

The S-97 helicopter is capable of speeds twice as fast as traditional helicopters and cruises at a speed of 230 mph. It will presumably be capable of both one or two man piloting as well as autonomous flight. The small helicopter can hold up to six passengers in addition to two flight crew. The first prototype is scheduled to fly in late 2013.

To read more about the S-97 helicopter, click here.

Key numbers and economic indicators for 2012

This post is an addendum to Composites Manufacturing‘s January/February 2012 State of the Industry feature. For a comprehensive Industry Report, pick up a free copy of the January/February 2012 issue.

Marine: Anchored or Ready to Set Sail?

For the first time in several years, the marine segment has better news to report in terms of customer demand and improving business results among boat fabricators. Boat making was one of the early success stories for composites proving itself a better performing and more cost-effective material, and strong market demand made it one of the core segments of the composites industry for several decades. The U.S. marine market matured and leveled off in the 1980’s with 1988 being the peak year in composites usage when 538,000 powerboats and sailboats were sold. Sadly, the trend has been downward almost every year since with the exception of a few years in the mid-1990’s when personal watercraft were taking off and industry unit sales technically surpassed the 1988 record. In 2012, the industry is likely to achieve new boat retail sales of 190,000-210,000 which pales in comparison to the 1980’s and 1990’s, but is good news because it signifies the end of a downward trend of the last many years. U.S. boat sales fell 26 percent in 2009 to 207,000 units and went down another 9 percent to 188,000 units in 2010.

Over the last several years, the marine industry has been forced to consolidate and downsize and the survivors have sought ways to cut costs and raise productivity. Industry leader, Brunswick, now offers 24 separate boat brands, 17 of which it acquired since 2000. Through nine months of 2011 it reported stronger unit sales until divesting its Sealine boat brand in the third quarter. Revenues for the Boat Group were up 9 percent to $820 million and its operating losses were only $12 million compared to $77 million during the same period of 2010. Brunswick commented in its SEC filing for the third quarter that stronger unit sales were offset by the unfavorable effect of a change in sales mix towards smaller boats from larger, higher margin boats.

In May of 2010, the market research firm Freedonia Group published a five year outlook on the U.S. recreational boating industry and estimated the segment would rebound and grow at the rate of 9.3 percent annually through 2014. Not only did that forecast miss the 9 percent decline in 2010, it appears far too optimistic given the lackluster economic recovery underway in the country at large. It might be reasonable to expect the industry could generate that kind of growth for a year or two (possibly 2011 and 2012), and while composites fabricators would love to see boating maintain that pace indefinitely, there does not seem to be enough middle class enthusiasm for large discretionary purchases like a new boat so long as much of the public is still preoccupied with declining home prices and job market uncertainties.

Sports & Rec Outlook

From skis and snowboards to fishing rods, golf clubs and racing bikes, composites are being used more and more to improve performance in a number of sports. Hockey sticks, archery bows, tennis rackets and surfboards are other well-known sports applications. As such, the market is fragmented and growth comes in spurts and starts as individual products are introduced and, hopefully, accepted. While there’s no denying the success of composites in delivering light weight and strength in these products, the consumer thus far has been fickle in terms of their willingness to make the purchase decision for a discretionary item. 2011 retail sales growth in the U.S. is expected to grow about 6-8 percent and will continue in 2012, albeit at a slower pace. Even if the payroll tax is extended, customers will rein in spending early in 2012 as they pay off credit cards and return to rebuilding their savings.

Aerospace, Military and Ballistics

Today the aerospace, military and ballistics segment represents approximately 3 percent of the total volume demand for composite materials but it easily reaches 10-15 percent of the sales value, largely because of their expensive reinforcements and/or high performance resins and sometimes because of the more costly engineering and fabricating processes required to mold these sophisticated materials. Carbon fiber, aramid, S-2 glass and other exotic fibers are the typical reinforcing materials and some E-glass yarns and rovings are used sparingly. The segment has supplied carbon fiber-reinforced components for use in military and civilian aircraft during the last few decades and significantly advanced its penetration of the commercial aircraft market with Boeing’s mostly-composite design of the new 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 XWB.

The aviation portion of this segment looks forward to a very healthy demand outlook for commercial aircraft. Boeing Corporation’s “Current Market Outlook: 2011-2030” predicts that global air travel will grow 6 percent in 2011 and should continue to growing at or above the historical trend of 5 percent through the middle of this decade. While the number of passengers is estimated to grow 4.2 percent over the long term and the number of revenue passenger miles will grow 5.1 percent, the actual increase in the size of the global commercial fleet will be only 3.6 percent. In hard numbers, the worldwide fleet will grow from 19,410 planes at the end of 2010 to 39,530 planes in 2030, a net gain of 20,120, but factoring in the number of aircraft that will be retired over the next 20 years raises the required build to 33,500 aircraft.

While that is a very respectable order backlog to address, the number of composite-intensive new airliners will be in the minority. Boeing currently has the capacity to produce only two Dreamliners per month and hopes to raise this figure to 10 by the end of 2013. Fully 70 percent of the total aircraft to be built in this forecast period will be single-aisle passenger jets with nominal amounts of composites. Another moderating factor in assessing the demand for U.S. composites fabricators and suppliers is that a growing percent of the composite components will be sourced overseas. As an example of how global the sourcing of composite aircraft parts has become, Boeing announced at the recent Dubai Airshow that it had signed an agreement establishing Mubadala Aerospace of the United Arab Emirates as a major Tier 1supplier of composite aerostructures. It also was no coincidence that Boeing announced at the same event that it would sell $26 billion in planes to Emirates Airlines.

Meanwhile, military demand for lightweight conventional defenses and weaponry has created many ingenious applications of composite materials since the original military uses of fiber glass during World War II. Blast panels for use in constructing barracks and mess halls in the theater of operations and improved armor for light weight vehicles like the Humvee are but a few common applications widely adopted by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the more high-volume applications have already begun to phase down and are likely to continue shrinking. A strong signal of the trend in future purchases was President Obama’s 2011 federal budget which proposed that total Department of Defense (DOD) expenditures should rise by 3.4 percent or only 1.8 percent after adjusting for inflation. This ties nicely with other administration stated goals like “rebalancing the force” and “reforming how DOD does business” elaborated by Defense Secretary Gates in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) the year before. Many suppliers of military-oriented products have already noticed a reduction in spending and we can expect leaner defense budgets for the foreseeable future.

Heavy Truck Sector

The heavy trucks industry segment represents less than 5percent of total new vehicle builds but accounts for a disproportionately large amount of composites consumption. Large truck composite features include exterior components, aerodynamic applications above the cab, jumbo-sized panels used in trailers and side skirts that can run most of the length of the trailer. As of the fourth quarter of 2011, we saw good strength in truck sales as replacement buying follows the absence of equipment buys from 2007-2009 (graph 6). Recovery in the medium-duty truck market (class 4-7) has been more subdued than heavy duty (class due to weakness in construction, small business and public-sector markets. On the other hand, operators of large rigs seem to be pressing ahead with long-delayed buying programs.

Trucking serves as a rough barometer of overall economic activity because it accounts for 67 percent of the tonnage carried by all modes of domestic transportation. According to the American Trucking Association, truck tonnage rose 5.7 percent in October from a year ago, the 23^rd consecutive month of year-over-year growth. On a monthly basis, October’s tonnage rose 0.5 percent from September. These modest growth rates in operating volumes will be exceeded in new truck unit sales in 2011 and 2012 because truckers have cut back on fleet size during the recession. The number of big rigs on the road is approximately 12 percent less than the 2006 peak year, yet tonnage levels are about the same as in late 2006. Class 8 sales are expected to rise 46 percent to 156,100 units in 2011 and 191,000 units in 2012. There is upside potential here, too, because replacement demand is currently driving the heavy truck recovery but fleet expansion is on the horizon for the more successful carriers. And looking further out, recovery in construction-sector activity should finally hit its stride in another year or two, which should allow the next stage of truck recovery to materialize.

Toyota FT-EV II

Vehicle Lightweighting
In 2011, the automotive industry started dropping a few thousand pounds off the weight of compact cars and trucks to increase fuel efficiency. Carbon fiber suppliers, such as the SGL Group and Quicksilver, contracted with European auto giants like BMW and Audi to get ready for a new wave of composite automotive parts.

First 787 Delivery

Terrafugia Transition

Cars with Wings
“It’s 2012, why don’t we have flying cars?” Well, soon you’ll have the opportunity to purchase one. The Terrafugia Transition is expected to hit the roads in 2012 and will cost upwards of $250,000. There are several other roadable aircraft prototypes currently being tested, which suggest that more designs may be on the way.

SpaceShipTwo by Scaled Composites

Personal Space Travel
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic providing customers with personal space travel, aided by the development of SpaceShipTwo by Scaled Composites. But there are also companies, like XCOR, building commercial spacecraft for two people to be shot out into space from Caribbean-island Curacao in 2014. Even several Russian companies and Bigelow Aerospace in the U.S. are building space hotels for this growing industry.

Asimo by Honda

Is that a robot?
Honda recently upgraded its Asimo robot to run, pour drinks, communicate through sign language and do other cool tricks, making it the most inundated robot ever built! Even the military is supporting new robot technology. An updated AlphaDog robot – modeled to look and operate like, well, a dog – and its LittleDog brother are manufactured by Boston Dynamics and sponsored by DARPA. Alpha can walk over 20 miles of rough terrain and carry 400 pounds.

Knickerbocker Bridge

Bridging the gap
More bridges like Knickerbocker Bridge, the longest composite bridge in the world, are using composites to extend the life and reduce maintenance life of installations. This is increasing the visibility of composites in large structures and giving DOTs the opportunity to learn more about the material.

What was your favorite composite engineered product from 2011? Weigh-in now!

Hardwire LLC, is a composite ballistic armor manufacturer based in Pocomoke, Md.

George Tunis is the owner of Hardwire LLC, a composite ballistic armor manufacturer based in Pocomoke, Md. His first experience with composites was in the 8^th grade making skate boards. Later, he built surfboards and worked with DuPont making boats, missiles and selling Kevlar. Hardwire LLC began primarily as a composite reinforcement for steel reinforced composites in 2000. After September 11, 2001, Tunis decided to shape Hardwire into an armor company, which has been involved in composite military solutions since. The company is currently working on a Humvee chimney structure to relieve the impact of underbelly attacks. His story is featured in the November/December issue of Composites Manufacturing. Here, he discusses the need for composites in military applications.

Why is material selection important in military projects?

I learned not to fall in love with the technology because in the world of armor you figure out what works. Instead, fall in love with the customer.

What makes your company unique?

My team. The guys at Hardwire are a bunch of engineers ranging from chemical, mechanical, aerospace and airplane parts. We live in a great area on the Maryland Eastern Shore and we’re very active in sports; the whole team bow hunts or kite sails. Rock climbers use the sports technology we use to adapt to the military, that’s where we get our inspiration. Military is the ultimate sport because they’re all athletes. We’re trying to make them better equipment, vehicles or pieces inside the vehicle.

Scott Kendall, our lead engineer, came to the beach to kite sail and he knocked on my door. Another engineer Ben Craimer was straight out of Purdue at the time and we met through kite sailing, too. Once we got the network going we started to tap into ex-military folks, not that we’re all military folks, but those who are retired are ranked, well-trained and special people. Kendall, was an F-16 pilot for a number of years and our Chief Electrical Engineer Rob Cosgriff was a nuclear sub commander. These guys are trained to think and to think fast. The military would drop Rob and leave him for a few months on his own, so he can uniquely take very broad directions.

Why did you develop the Humvee Chimney?

I have both my arms and legs, other people in this effort don’t enjoy those luxuries. We’d like to keep everyone glued together. We wanted to make a competitive vehicle that could be lifted by a helicopter yet still be able to drive over a bomb and have people walk away. A lot of the industry just threw mass at the problem. Instead of going after mass, we went after force (force = mass x acceleration) by finding ways to mitigate or go around the force. We have brilliant mathematicians on staff and first thing we dug into was the physics. When we solve for mathematical equations, we first try to determine the largest number, which in some cases is the squared or cubed term. On this particular problem we went after the beast. You have to understand the beast and use it against itself, or throw a bunch of mass at it.

How do composites fit into the equation?

Composites are about being light. Since our first day working, we set out to be lighter. That’s a key thing we’ve lost along the way in this market, especially in the Marines. Right now we can’t take a vehicle from flat top ships, of which there are 21 in the world, with a helicopter and have a vehicle that is bomb resistant and has protection of MRAP because they’re too heavy. If we could make it possible, then the battle zone becomes 3 dimensional because suddenly you can be where they don’t expect you to be. Instead of driving up the road, which is heavily mined, drop in behind it. It would make a really bad day for the bad guy.

What does the military market have to look forward to in 2012?

I think you’re going to see a consistent blend of metallics and composites. It’s not going to be a wholesale replacement, but within that you will see an aggressive use of composites similar to composite adoption in the aircraft industries. It starts with using composites in secondary structures and in armor. A common rumor is that composites are not as consistent as steel or metals in armor but that’s not true, we are actually more consistent. What it comes down to is expertise in manufacturing. It’s the strong attention to details, materials and processes, the exact process and process control. I think this part of the manufacturing story is just emerging for composites.

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Through the Advanced Vehicle Power Technology Alliance (AVPTA), the DOE and DOA will leverage resources to foster development of technologies to improve ground vehicle power and meet U.S. energy efficiency goals.

A new alliance between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of the Army (DOA) to promote the development of clean energy technologies has the potential to drastically benefit composites manufacturers.

Through the Advanced Vehicle Power Technology Alliance (AVPTA), announced in mid-July, the two departments will leverage resources to foster development of technologies to improve ground vehicle power and meet U.S. energy efficiency goals, as well as speed military and commercial adoption of those technologies.

“The whole purpose of the alliance is to identify technology in which the DOE and DOA have common interest and a common background,” says Bruce Huffman, public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), based in Warren, Mich. The DOA, Huffman says, will gain access to the DOE’s portfolio of cutting-edge clean energy technologies, while the DOE will gain an outlet to transition the technologies to a broader user base.

Among the technologies singled out for promotion by the alliance are “lightweight structures and materials,” including composite components such as space frames, carbon fiber and hybrid designs. Though lightweight composites have been used in a variety of military and commercial applications, factors including cost, joining technology and repair have kept them from being used on vehicles, says Pat Davis, vehicle technologies program manager for the DOE. Through the AVPTA, the two departments will work to overcome those challenges.

Richard Gerth, with TARDEC’s National Automotive Center, in Warren, Mich., says the alliance will help composites manufacturers develop their technologies by working with the military, as well as find ways to make them more cost efficient.

“We can provide an early opportunity for manufacturers to get their best materials or manufacturing processes—multi-material joining, advanced resin, low-cost carbon fiber—and try to work with us to develop it,” Gerth says. “Manufacturers can work with DOE to transition to us through our supply chains and improve their ability to mass produce for others in the future.”

Though details are still being hammered out, Eric Kallio, also with the National Automotive Center, says the formation of the alliance will not result in any operational changes for composites manufacturers already working with TARDEC or DOE. Information submitted to either department, for instance, through TARDEC’s ground vehicle gateway (online at https://tardec.groundvehiclegateway.com/)—will be visible to both.

“Companies can submit technology offerings to us that they think would be of interest to TARDEC, and those could be identified as possible dual-use, joint TARDEC-DOE opportunities,” Kallio says.

But Gerth cautions that working with the alliance does not guarantee that a manufacturer’s technology will ultimately make its way into a finished vehicle. “I think it’s important to point out that this is primarily a research and technology transfer alliance, not a procurement action,” Gerth says. “Manufacturers can work with us to develop the research and demonstrate the technology through use on an actual vehicle, but if we buy something, it will ultimately be the manufacturer’s responsibility to get that technology in the supply chain of an OEM.” 

The AVPTA’s first official event, the Advanced Vehicle Power Technology Workshop, took place July 18 and 19 in Detroit, where the alliance will be based. The workshop brought together experts from various fields to lay the groundwork for the alliance’s strategy, and participants included Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Under Secretary of the Army Joseph Westphal.

“The fact that we had this caliber of speakers in attendance gives you the sense that the Department of Energy and the Department of Army are very interested in this technology and the fruits of what this technology can bring to our war fighters,” Huffman says.

To read more stories like this, click here.

Jamie Hartford is a freelance writer based in Hood River, Ore. Email comments to jlhartford@gmail.com.

Project: The Fly-Bag

School: University of Sheffield

Location: Sheffield, United Kingdom

Director: Jim Warren

As terrorists increasingly targeted airlines by planting bombs in passenger luggage, Jim Warren turned his attention to preventing catastrophic damage to planes. Warren and his research team in the University of Sheffield’s Department of Civil and Structural Engineering developed the Fly-Bag, a flexible container to hold passenger luggage. It features multiple layers of fabrics, composites and coatings designed to absorb a bomb blast.

“The Fly-Bag works like a high-strength balloon,” says Warren. “In the event of an explosion, it stretches slightly, holding the explosive gas and fragments inside. Then it gradually allows the gas to escape into the hold at a rate the vent valve in the plane can deal with.”

The Fly-Bag is an alternative to hard luggage containers, which are expensive and heavy. In addition, they don’t fit in many narrow-body aircrafts. “[Hard luggage containers] give airlines a large capital and ongoing fuel cost,” says Warren. “We saw a need for a low-weight, lower-cost solution.”

A prototype of the Fly-Bag is attached to the hold of an Airbus A319.

The proprietary Fly-Bag uses several different high-strength, Aramid-based fabrics, some of which have yarns coated with shear thickening fluid. The inside of the bag is coated with a high-strength elastomer that acts as a gas seal. The floor is constructed of a glass fiber sandwich. “The floor plate had to be stiff enough to accept bags and workers, but lightweight and able to decouple the blast shock,” says Warren.

The researchers tested several sandwich architectures by detonating explosives on a standard fabric pack on the sandwich and comparing the performances. “We required something that spreads the load temporally and spatially,” says Warren. “From the lessons we learned in the tests about fiber concentrations, resin types, resin process, foam infill and relative sandwich thickness, we honed in on what we wanted.”

The team designed two rigs for testing multiple layers of various materials—one small and one large. In small-scale tests, Warren’s team assessed the stiffness and burst strengths of fabrics under high-rate loading and quasi-static pressure loading. They used a small-volume pressure chamber venting into a similar chamber, closed at its free end with fabric. Based on those results, the team selected materials for a large-scale test in a 1 x 1 x 1-meter steel box open on one side. The opening was covered with the composite fabric and explosives were detonated beneath it.

A prototype of the full-size Fly-Bag has been tested using actual luggage. “It worked as planned!” says Warren. The University of Sheffield is now working to produce the Fly-Bag, either by licensing the technology or partnering with a consortium of European companies.

To read more stories like this, click here.

The new Piranha, an unmanned vessel by Zyvex Technologies is a 54-foot carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced carbon fiber boat undergoes testing in various choppy waters.

The new unmanned vessel by Zyvex Technologies of Columbus, Ohio, named the Piranha, is not just another smooth boat ride on calm waters. When the 54-foot carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced carbon fiber boat underwent testing in Washington’s choppy Puget Sound, the boat didn’t experience a planing effect, which is where acceleration lifts the front of the boat from the water and limits its effective top speed. This triumph sent Russell Belden, vice president of Advanced Composites Solutions with Zyvex Technologies, looking for choppier waters, including waves up to 12 feet high in the open ocean.

“Testing has gone very well, including rough ocean tests out in the Pacific,” said Mike Nemeth, head of commercial and defense applications for Zyvex. The boat cruised 600 nautical miles off the coast of Washington and Oregon and only consumed 12 gallons of fuel per hour travelling at 25 knots, despite rough waters. According to company data, a conventional aluminum or fiberglass boat would have used about 50 gallons of fuel per hour at that speed.

The Piranha boasts a range of 2,800 nautical miles at cruising speed, equal to 29 miles per hour, and has a top speed of 45 knots, or 52 miles per hour. Zyvex touts the vessel as a companion boat to guard merchant vessels against piracy, as a surveillance vessel to watch the coast for drug runners or terrorists, and as a rescue vessel to go out in severe weather. “In each instance, the unmanned vessel can be monitored to give it the same capabilities as a manned vessel without risking lives,” adds Belden. The Piranha can be launched from a larger ship or dropped from the air and can stay out on the water for 40 days and can carry a load of 15,000 pounds—a weight far exceeding the range and payload of existing drone vessels.

Zyvex Technologies, a spin-off of parent company Zyvex, is a molecular nanotechnology company originally based in Richardson, Texas. The company moved to Columbus, Ohio to concentrate on advanced materials. The new location allows Zyvex Technologies to connect with the Ohio composites manufacturing community and forge partnerships important to the growth of its products,” says Nameth.

The new division developed a process that binds carbon nanotubes to carbon fiber composites. “Carbon nanotubes aren’t necessarily a good actor with other materials,” Belden says. “They bond to themselves and reject the host matrix.” This new process makes carbon nanotubes compatible with an epoxy and the materials readily bond.

The result? “Carbon fiber on steroids — stronger, stiffer, tougher,” says Belden. He emphasizes that the material can be used to make a part that will be stronger than the metal or fiberglass part, or, with engineering, can be smaller and lighter but just as strong as the part it replaces.

Zyvex engineers its own prepreg and epoxy in order to enhance the Piranha with carbon nanotubes. “For workers building the vessel, this means they’re able to quickly assemble a Piranha in our tooling without needing doctorate degrees in nano-chemistry,” said Nameth.

From start of construction to launch a boat takes approximately 90 days, with most of the time dedicated to system integration work such as placing the engines in the craft and connecting the systems. The nano-composite build process takes places at the beginning of the assembly process and overall, hulls are outfitted to meet customer requirements.

The company took more than two years to evaluate its options before settling on a boat as its technology demonstrator. “As an alternative to marine, we seriously evaluated the wind energy market with the intent to create an ultra-light blade that would increase efficiency and reduce operating costs,” says Nemeth. “We also looked at airplanes and concept cars,” adds Belden. “Ultimately, we had very strong internal marine design capabilities and recognized that our nano-carbon fiber composites could greatly impact the performance of a maritime platform if fully considered in every stage of development.”

Existing unmanned surface vessels, typically made of aluminum are heavier, carry a smaller payload and generally have a tenth of the range of the Piranha. “But a major drawback at the moment is that the carbon nanotube product is 30 percent more costly than regular carbon fiber,” Belden says. “The biggest challenge we’ve found with our customers is that they don’t have the ability to design products to use our material.” If a boat manufacturer using aluminum or fiberglass attempts to simply switch the materials out, Belden explains, the boat would be too light for the design and would be unstable. For example, if a sailboat manufacturer wanted to replace an aluminum beam, Zyvex would suggest a redesign to account for the lighter weight while maintaining stability. “Composites require a different engineering process than metal or fiberglass,” says Belden. Those differences reflect industry reluctance to greater adoption of the material.

Despite challenges, Zyvex showed boat manufacturers that while a typical 50-foot boat weighs 50,000 pounds, it can make a 10,000-pound boat with a fully furnished cabin and galley that will use smaller engines, equating to significant fuel savings. “Right now they can’t get their minds around it,” Belden says.

But the company is pressing onward. According to Belden, Zyvex would love to produce other products, such as car bodies, with its new materials. “Currently carbon fiber hoods are custom built for enthusiasts but they only save about 20 pounds over their conventional counterpart. We’d like to be involved in the whole process,” says Belden. “A 1,000 pound, 100-miles-per-gallon car would be cool.”

Greg Rohloff is a freelance writer based in Amarillo, Texas.

Nick Baird—sales director, Permali Gloucester

Nick Baird is sales director of Permali Gloucester Ltd. of Gloucester, UK. He studied aeronautical engineering and initially worked as a design engineer on aircraft hydraulic and pneumatic systems. He joined Permali Gloucester as a sales manager responsible for aerospace products and later became sales director with overall responsibility for all markets which include rail, motorsport, defense and aerospace.

How has the use of composite materials grown in the defense industry?

I would start by saying that the use of composites in defense is nothing new! The use of wood-fiber based composites on aircraft dates back to World War II, and glass fiber composites have been used in armor and naval applications for over 40 years. However, the use of composites continues to grow in defense, certainly for armor applications and increasingly for primary structures in aircraft, vehicles and ships.

Why is there a trend toward more use of composites in defense applications?

There has been a massive increase in the use of composites for armor over the last 10 years. This has been driven by the much greater “mass efficiency” of composite armors compared to metallic systems in stopping any given threat, and generally the advantages of composites are even greater when faced with the most severe threats such as IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

Composites also have other significant benefits, such as much reduced “behind armor effects” ― this is the tendency of metal vehicle hulls or armor to spall or splinter when they are penetrated by a severe threat. You can never design an armor system to stop everything, but you can design a system to reduce the number of injuries or fatalities when you do get hit by something big.

What challenges do composites present in defense applications?

As composites are introduced into various new applications, the main issue is a lack of familiarity by both the buyers and the users. Composites require different inspection and repair techniques to metals, so it is crucial that high quality training and documentation is provided to the operators in the field and at repair stations.

What other benefits do composites offer compared to steel or aluminum?

Composites have inherently lower radar signatures than metals, although this is just one aspect among many when designing for stealth. This is a key benefit to the use of composites for topside structures on ships and is becoming an issue for armored vehicles.

Is there a certain composite more suitable in naval and commercial vessels?

Sadly, a number of lessons were learned the hard way about the behavior of materials in fire, particularly in confined spaces such as ships or trains, aircraft etc. It is important that materials are not just fire-retardant but also don’t emit smoke or toxic fumes in a fire. Phenolics allow the many benefits of composites while having excellent flammability performance ― they are inherently fire-retardant without any further additives, and their smoke and toxic fume emissions are very low. The most effective fire-retardant additives that are used with other polymers are often based on halogens, which can emit extremely toxic fumes in fires and are therefore ill-suited for these applications.

How do you test your materials?

We have an in-house test laboratory which performs regular quality control checks on all our products, and also supports the R&D process. We perform a lot of routine mechanical and fire testing in-house, although we do use outside test houses for some of the more specialist fire tests, and our ballistic testing is conducted at an independent lab close to our facility.

What other types of projects are you working on now?

We invest in a lot of R&D to offer improved composite armor solutions for high level threats for vehicle programs, and also to reduce the weight of composite armor for aircraft programs. We are also developing composites for use in vehicle structures or complete monocoque bodies, including optimizing the composite materials and construction to provide better protection against blast and under-belly mines. The benefits of composites for armored vehicles are compelling and we expect to see them used extensively in the next generation of vehicles under development.

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cChrystal, a four-star general in the United States Army who retired last year, talked for almost an hour this afternoon at COMPOSITES 2011 about war and scars and leadership and, yes, composites.

For the better part of four years, Stanley McChrystal spent his Afghanistan nights under a camouflage comforter in a small plywood room. He worked in a building as big a house that was constructed out of the stuff in less than a month. Folks called it the Plywood Palace.

McChrystal, a four-star general in the United States Army who retired last year, talked for almost an hour this afternoon at COMPOSITES 2011 about war and scars and leadership and, yes, composites. Are war and composites manufacturing all that similar? Perhaps not, but the idea of leadership is a key part of any business.

“Why are leaders important?” McChrystal asked. “That’s how you succeed. That’s how you win in war, that’s how you win in politics, that’s how you win in just about everything. We’ve got to learn to be better leaders at every level.”

The three main points about leaders and leadership—from a man who would know—are relatively simple. As leaders, he said, we must actually solve problems. We must change, because talking about change is easy, but implementing it is not. And we must be able to build relationships with those we lead—we must not forget that there is a very real human factor when it comes to leading people in war, in the factory or anywhere in between.

“You’re only going to make it if you build relationships,” McChrystal said. “Relationships give an amazing durability to an organization.”

McChrystal closed his time on the stage by revealing just why, exactly, he loves plywood. An image popped up on the screen of a bunch of thin sheets, each a couple of inches from the other. The grains are headed in opposite directions, glue about to be pressed.

“Put together the layers, glue them together, and they become pretty strong,” he said.

Before McChrystal dived into leadership, he thanked those in attendance for their work with composites, which he said have played a key role in the evolution of military equipment during the last 30 years. “I started with a steel helmet, and ended up with a Kevlar helmet,” he said. “Composites kept soldiers that I know alive after taking two rounds in the chest. I know the vehicles (utilizing composites) we used kept us alive,” he said. “There’s a special place in my heart for the things that make things better. What you make makes things better.”

Before McChrystal spoke, ACMA president Monty Felix talked about the state of the industry and the association, focusing on the styrene debate. “Our industry stands on the verge of its greatest regulatory challenge ever, but it doesn’t have to happen,” he said. “We must all stand up and fight this.”

Gen. Stanley McChrystal will address COMPOSITES 2011 attendees, discussing management strategy and composites in the military.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal will be a keynote speaker at Composites 2012 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Wednesday, February 2. McChrystal is a retired Four-Star Army general and the former commander of U.S. and International Forces in Afghanistan. He’ll discuss management strategy, with an emphasis on openness, teamwork and forward-thinking. He will also discuss the use of composites in the military.

Composites 2011will be held Feb. 2 – 4. More information about registration and education sessions can be found at acmashow.org.

Follow the only official Composites 2011 show coverage at Composites Manufacturing’s blog under “Composites Show.”