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What if the dog caught the car?
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What if the dog caught the car? Large unfamiliar opportunities are passing through the composites neighbourhood. Market developers have set off in pursuit. If the prey is overtaken, will it be digestible?
truck-mounted natural gas tanks this winter has sent engineers to the tilt-table to refine specifications on how these units should be installed. We are probably in for some scepticism about civil engineering use of composites, if researchers put structural elements in test as if they were simply 'steel from chemicals' instead of designing for anisotropy.
Just 5% of the North American market for single application -- reinforcing bar for concrete - is said to be equal to an entire year's current production volumes for all markets. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology, administrator of the US Department of Commerce Advanced Technology Program, has designated $160 million over the next five years for high-risk commercializations research on composites for infrastructure and automotive applications, on a cost-share basis with industry. A proposal by Pacific Gas & Electric in California to eliminate the use of costly compressors by developing carbon fibre pressure vessels for natural gas filling stations would use 1.5 million lbs of the reinforcement per year. This too would require new fibre production assets, even in a sector whose present capacity is nearly double current worldwide demand.
How will these capacity and capability problems be faced? As usual, both incrementally and by breakthroughs of magnitude. Look for a m a j o r t e c h n o l o g y announcement or two, soon, from chemical suppliers w h o are integrating cure rate with composites article productivity, to bring cycle times down to an unpreced e n t e d low interval. On the business structure side, it can be expected that Fortune 500 companies with technology appreciation will invest in single-product factories for composites at a level beyond the reach of current diversified fabricators. Owens Corning's global planning gives a suggestion of things to come: apart from the reinforcement business, this company has identified large-diameter FRP pipe as a major opportunity in the development countries. The company's own production is accelerating for direct sale to governments as well as industry, with four additional joint ventures in full operation and several more in negotiation. This single-product business unit may soon operate on every continent.
Will any of these mega-markets really develop? Probably not exactly as foreseen. But there is no question that improbably large uses for composite materials at every performance level do lie ahead. They have the potential to make the current shortage of continuous strand glass mat, moulding production for heavy trucks, and continuous carbon fibre for golf club shafts all look trivial by comparison.
So are there answers for every question? Hardly. But the scary disjunctions are good ones to have, giving opportunity to create value, and valuable work. We have achieved at least one of our desires, to live in interesting times.
Capacity is not the only problem. Whitbread yacht race designers are giving composites bad publicity, calling this year's event a 'delamination derby' as a result of bulging hull structures on a number of the 60foot boats in mid-ocean. The corrosion failure of two
Reinforced Plastics July/August 1994
Joe McDermott
76
0034-3617/94/$7.00©1994, Elsevier Science Ltd
What if the dog caught the car? Large unfamiliar opportunities are passing through the composites neighbourhood. Market developers have set off in pursuit. If the prey is overtaken, will it be digestible?
truck-mounted natural gas tanks this winter has sent engineers to the tilt-table to refine specifications on how these units should be installed. We are probably in for some scepticism about civil engineering use of composites, if researchers put structural elements in test as if they were simply 'steel from chemicals' instead of designing for anisotropy.
Just 5% of the North American market for single application -- reinforcing bar for concrete - is said to be equal to an entire year's current production volumes for all markets. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology, administrator of the US Department of Commerce Advanced Technology Program, has designated $160 million over the next five years for high-risk commercializations research on composites for infrastructure and automotive applications, on a cost-share basis with industry. A proposal by Pacific Gas & Electric in California to eliminate the use of costly compressors by developing carbon fibre pressure vessels for natural gas filling stations would use 1.5 million lbs of the reinforcement per year. This too would require new fibre production assets, even in a sector whose present capacity is nearly double current worldwide demand.
How will these capacity and capability problems be faced? As usual, both incrementally and by breakthroughs of magnitude. Look for a m a j o r t e c h n o l o g y announcement or two, soon, from chemical suppliers w h o are integrating cure rate with composites article productivity, to bring cycle times down to an unpreced e n t e d low interval. On the business structure side, it can be expected that Fortune 500 companies with technology appreciation will invest in single-product factories for composites at a level beyond the reach of current diversified fabricators. Owens Corning's global planning gives a suggestion of things to come: apart from the reinforcement business, this company has identified large-diameter FRP pipe as a major opportunity in the development countries. The company's own production is accelerating for direct sale to governments as well as industry, with four additional joint ventures in full operation and several more in negotiation. This single-product business unit may soon operate on every continent.
Will any of these mega-markets really develop? Probably not exactly as foreseen. But there is no question that improbably large uses for composite materials at every performance level do lie ahead. They have the potential to make the current shortage of continuous strand glass mat, moulding production for heavy trucks, and continuous carbon fibre for golf club shafts all look trivial by comparison.
So are there answers for every question? Hardly. But the scary disjunctions are good ones to have, giving opportunity to create value, and valuable work. We have achieved at least one of our desires, to live in interesting times.
Capacity is not the only problem. Whitbread yacht race designers are giving composites bad publicity, calling this year's event a 'delamination derby' as a result of bulging hull structures on a number of the 60foot boats in mid-ocean. The corrosion failure of two
Reinforced Plastics July/August 1994
Joe McDermott
76
0034-3617/94/$7.00©1994, Elsevier Science Ltd