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UK company succeeds in metering extremely viscous adhesive
Reinforced Plastics Volume 60, Number 1 January/February 2016
time a car shifts gear. FTE Automotive offers various CSC designs for light and heavy commercial vehicles that, depending on the application, are usually fabricated from aluminum or engineering polymers.
FTE Automotive chose Torlon 7130 PAI reinforced with 30% carbon fiber loading to make an innovative locking device to maintains radial positioning within the dCSC throughout the transmission’s life cycle requirements, avoiding friction and exhi-
TECHNOLOGY
biting low wear. The improved lubricity and fatigue resistance of the grade enables the locking device to withstand millions of loading cycles from the torsional excitation of the clutch. Solvay; www.solvay.com
Glass fiber giant Owens Corning has announced the North American launch of its PulStrand 4100 roving. According to the company, the product, introduced in Europe in early 2015, has improved processing qualities, strength, and fatigue resistance in a multi-compatible product for polyester, vinyl ester, epoxy, and polyurethane resin systems. It could provide faster line speeds while reducing downtime, scrap, and labor,
and could improve the modulus and durability of pultruded profiles for a variety of markets. The sizing chemistry of PulStrand 4100 allows for improved resin-to-glass adhesion and uniform wet-out, by more than 50% when compared to existing products, according to company tests. There is also a reduction of fuzz formation of up to 92%, less part bowing, and deformation and improved humidity resistance. The
sizing also allows for increased glass content (higher modulus) and helps to improve the flexural, shear, and compressive strength of composite products, Owens Corning says. The PulStrand 4100 product covers a tex range of between 600–9600 and can be customized to specific application requirements. Owens Corning; www.owenscorning.com
sections, as well improvements to several popular postprocessors. The new user interface is similar to JETCAM’s CrossTrack product, and focuses on reducing the mouse movements a user has to perform during day-to-day operations.
All file management and tabular data views have been improved with new controls, and general performance improvements have been made throughout the interface. JETCAM Composite GmbH; www.jetcamcomposite.com
JETCAM rolls out new software JETCAM Composite GmbH has developed new versions of its core composite software. The company has developed a new interface in its nesting software JETCAM Expert. The latest release includes a range of improvements across the CAD and CAM
UK company succeeds in metering extremely viscous adhesive UK Flowtechnik has successfully used a flowmeter to measure the flow rate of Araldite AW4804 aluminum filled adhesive and HW4804 hardener in a high temperature (2108C) application. ‘This was a first for us and we had to start with a clean sheet of paper. We have in the past steered away from aluminum filler as our flow meters run tight tolerances and don’t like big particles,’ said Andrew Biggs, technical sales manager at UK Flowtechnik. According to the company, the viscosity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 cps and with 55% by weight aluminum filler made this a very difficult media. It was therefore crucial that the ratio of resin to hardener was accurately controlled, otherwise the strength of the
composite assembly would reduced, or in the worst case, the resin would not harden, leading to components being scrapped. Traditional gear flow meters would be large, expensive, completely impractical and unreliable as they have very low output frequencies which can make them difficult to control.
Low pressure drop To solve the problem UK Flowtechnik used a large RS Series helical screw flowmeter from VSE in Germany to give a low pressure drop across the meter yet still provide enough accuracy and resolution for the control system. The helical screw principle allowed the resin to move through the flow meter
without loss or slippage of flow whilst also allowing a high degree of filler without shearing the media. The flow meter is fitted with interpolation electronics which increases the resolution by up to 128 times, giving a high output frequency, allowing a greater degree of control and faster response time to changes in flow rate. ‘With the high viscosity of most resins and the smaller ratio of hardener, flow rates are low but the flowmeters themselves are quite large in comparison,’ added Biggs. ‘But the interpolation electronics allows us to have a large flowmeter with small flowmeter resolution and response time.’ UK Flowtechnik; www.ukflowtechnik.com
17
TECHNOLOGY
Owens Corning introduces single-end roving to the NA market
time a car shifts gear. FTE Automotive offers various CSC designs for light and heavy commercial vehicles that, depending on the application, are usually fabricated from aluminum or engineering polymers.
FTE Automotive chose Torlon 7130 PAI reinforced with 30% carbon fiber loading to make an innovative locking device to maintains radial positioning within the dCSC throughout the transmission’s life cycle requirements, avoiding friction and exhi-
TECHNOLOGY
biting low wear. The improved lubricity and fatigue resistance of the grade enables the locking device to withstand millions of loading cycles from the torsional excitation of the clutch. Solvay; www.solvay.com
Glass fiber giant Owens Corning has announced the North American launch of its PulStrand 4100 roving. According to the company, the product, introduced in Europe in early 2015, has improved processing qualities, strength, and fatigue resistance in a multi-compatible product for polyester, vinyl ester, epoxy, and polyurethane resin systems. It could provide faster line speeds while reducing downtime, scrap, and labor,
and could improve the modulus and durability of pultruded profiles for a variety of markets. The sizing chemistry of PulStrand 4100 allows for improved resin-to-glass adhesion and uniform wet-out, by more than 50% when compared to existing products, according to company tests. There is also a reduction of fuzz formation of up to 92%, less part bowing, and deformation and improved humidity resistance. The
sizing also allows for increased glass content (higher modulus) and helps to improve the flexural, shear, and compressive strength of composite products, Owens Corning says. The PulStrand 4100 product covers a tex range of between 600–9600 and can be customized to specific application requirements. Owens Corning; www.owenscorning.com
sections, as well improvements to several popular postprocessors. The new user interface is similar to JETCAM’s CrossTrack product, and focuses on reducing the mouse movements a user has to perform during day-to-day operations.
All file management and tabular data views have been improved with new controls, and general performance improvements have been made throughout the interface. JETCAM Composite GmbH; www.jetcamcomposite.com
JETCAM rolls out new software JETCAM Composite GmbH has developed new versions of its core composite software. The company has developed a new interface in its nesting software JETCAM Expert. The latest release includes a range of improvements across the CAD and CAM
UK company succeeds in metering extremely viscous adhesive UK Flowtechnik has successfully used a flowmeter to measure the flow rate of Araldite AW4804 aluminum filled adhesive and HW4804 hardener in a high temperature (2108C) application. ‘This was a first for us and we had to start with a clean sheet of paper. We have in the past steered away from aluminum filler as our flow meters run tight tolerances and don’t like big particles,’ said Andrew Biggs, technical sales manager at UK Flowtechnik. According to the company, the viscosity of 300,000 to 1,000,000 cps and with 55% by weight aluminum filler made this a very difficult media. It was therefore crucial that the ratio of resin to hardener was accurately controlled, otherwise the strength of the
composite assembly would reduced, or in the worst case, the resin would not harden, leading to components being scrapped. Traditional gear flow meters would be large, expensive, completely impractical and unreliable as they have very low output frequencies which can make them difficult to control.
Low pressure drop To solve the problem UK Flowtechnik used a large RS Series helical screw flowmeter from VSE in Germany to give a low pressure drop across the meter yet still provide enough accuracy and resolution for the control system. The helical screw principle allowed the resin to move through the flow meter
without loss or slippage of flow whilst also allowing a high degree of filler without shearing the media. The flow meter is fitted with interpolation electronics which increases the resolution by up to 128 times, giving a high output frequency, allowing a greater degree of control and faster response time to changes in flow rate. ‘With the high viscosity of most resins and the smaller ratio of hardener, flow rates are low but the flowmeters themselves are quite large in comparison,’ added Biggs. ‘But the interpolation electronics allows us to have a large flowmeter with small flowmeter resolution and response time.’ UK Flowtechnik; www.ukflowtechnik.com
17
TECHNOLOGY
Owens Corning introduces single-end roving to the NA market