Conference report First International SAMPE Japan Chapter Symposium and Exhibition Makuhari Convention Center, Japan, 28 November-1 December 1989 Organized by : SAMPE Japan Chapter The four-day conference and exhibition, hosted by The Japan Chapter and co-sponsored by The Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun Ltd., was held on the outskirts of Tokyo. The Conference, with its stated theme of 'New Materials and Processes for the Future', comprised 298 technical papers (including 71 from 10 foreign countries) in 33 session categories.
izawa (Tohoku University), who was awarded 'The Culture Medal' from the Emperor for his unique contribution to the electronic industry just a few weeks ago, explained his recent research on silicon and GaAs. He suggested another development in electronic devices, such as static induction thyristor for electric power engineering.
These sessions covered a wider range of materials and processes than to the other SAMPE meetings, including, for example, amorphous metals, shape memory metals, superplasticity, superconductive materials, biomaterials and, as for processing, advanced heat treatment and nanotechnology. This provided a good opportunity to transfer technologies---one of the aims of the general committee.
The technical papers were presented in five concurrent sessions. The following seemed to be of interest to the composites people.
The exhibition, with 148 participating companies (including 12 from USA, four from France, two from Switzerland, and one each from UK, Belgium and Korea), had the theme of 'Technology Transfer to the Industry Field' and was well prepared and very attractive. Many types of fibres, matrices, prepregs and advanced composite products were exhibited, together with production and testing equipment. Among them, the following were of typical interest. (1) The carbon fibre composite cables made from PAN-based carbon fibre and epoxy or bismaleimide resin were displayed as reinforcing cables for marine concrete supporting structure, etc. (Tokyo Rope Manufacturing Co.Ltd.) (2) Long and lightweight CFRP rolls 480 mm in diameter, 7.80 m in length and weighing 300 kg and made from pitch-based carbon fibre for a production machine. (Nippon Steel Corp.) (3) Automatic carbon fibre tape wrapper of concrete structures for reinforcement from earthquakes. (Ohbayashi Corp.) (4) Reinforcing advanced fabrics, such as biased, three dimensional and circular woven cloth. (Ashimori Industry Co.Ltd.) The conference opened with three keynote lectures. Jerry L. Bauer (President, SAMPE International) talked about the great achievement of two Voyager spacecraft with many wonderful slides, giving the audience a clear idea of the success via composites. J. Hognat (Aerospatiale, France) presented the state-ofthe-art of advanced composites in Europe and their study of fibre-matrix compatibility. Professor J. Nish-
Among the 24 invited papers, in the interface and bonding structure session, Ohuchi (E.I. duPont) presented a very comprehensible lecture on 'A surface science investigation of metal-ceramic interfacial reactions', suggesting a great deal to the material engineers who are mainly concerned with process factors, although the audience was quite small, due to the early programme start. Also, in the adhesive session, Gent (University of Akron) talked on 'Failure mechanisms in model composites'. He explained the internal failure mode of cavity formation and delamination around an inclusion. In the polymer session, Karasz (University of Massachusetts) talked on 'High temperature polymer blends', detailing miscibilities of aromatic polyimides and polybenzimidazole or polyethersulphone. Nissen and Stutz (BASF AG) reviewed thermosetting resins, and in the processing in composites session Ko (Drexel University) gave the review lecture on new developments in advanced preforming concept for structural composites and on new trends in matrix placement, material and geometric hybridization through textile preforming. As for ceramics, there was much talked on whiskers. Among them, Prewo (United Technologies Research Center) and Chert (Pratt & Whitney) talked on glass and ceramic matrix composites. Relating to this paper, Ichikawa et al. (Nippon Carbon Co.Ltd.) presented 'Mechanical and electrical properties of SiC fiber (NICALON) and their composites.' Morimoto et al. (Kobe Steel, Ltd.) described the effects of HIP consolidating temperature on mechanical properties of SiC whisker reinforced aluminium alloy composites. In the fibre-reinforced thermoplastics session, Nagumo and Nakamura (Fuji Heavy Industries, Ltd.) and Nakakura and Sakai (Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals, Ltd.)
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presented 'New thermoplastics polyimide composite', introducing their developed 'PIX', explained the properties and processability. And Masutani et al. (Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals, Ltd.) reported 'Deep drapable thermoplastic composites'. They showed easy processability with thermoplastic prepreg which has controlled fibre notches with the distance between the notches along the fibre direction being longer than critical fibre length. Commingled yarn and co-woven composites were investigated by Matsuo et al. (Toyobo Co., Ltd.) with Maekawa et al. (Kyoto Institute of Technology) and Fujii et al. (Nitto Boseki Co., Ltd.) respectively. They reported an improvement in the reduction of the void, and some good results.
Short pitch-based carbon fibre reinforced concrete composites in the construction field were investigated by Hod et al. (Kureha Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.) and Taniguchi et al. (Kajima Corp.). It was found that the CFRCstrength increased with higher fibre strength and volume fraction, but were not always proportional, and that the proportional limit strength data could be explained by the Aveston-Cooper-Kelly model. The number of visitors to the exhibition for the four days was reportedly 44 290 with the delegates to the symposium numbering 989, including 141 from 15 foreign countries. No doubt, this event was a great success. We must thank the members who organized this meeting.
As pitch-based carbon fibres are of current interest, because so many companies in Japan are now developing and producing them, there were many related papers. Takabatake et al. (PETCA, Ltd.) investigated the treatment of mesophase pitch carbon fibre and their carbon matrix composites.
S. Arai Visiting Professor, Engineering Department Kyushu Institute of Technology/ Toray Industries, Inc. Japan
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