Enhanced plastic market ready to go

Recently, the Enhanced Plastics Federation unveiled the 2012 Innovation Award at the annual conference. The Innovation Award is divided into three awards: Product Application Award, Process Award, and Research Technology Award.

The first prize for the Product Application Award was Gummiwerk Kraiburg. The company won the medical leopard CFI prosthetic foot. The product's structure consists of an inner and outer carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) and a core polyaramid fiber fabric treated with EPDM. The carbon fiber fabric-reinforced plastic and rubber layers are first treated as non-crosslinked and then cured simultaneously without the use of an adhesive to form a strong bond. Dr. Jens Schaube of Gummiwerk Kraiburg stated to the awards review committee: “This kind of prosthesis combines the dynamics of carbon with the comfort of rubber.” It is reported that this product has withstood 3 million exercise tests. No major failure. At the same time, the three-point load test shows that the composite material has better bending than the traditional carbon fiber composite material. The collision test conducted at Allianz Insurance Company's test center also showed that the composite material after adding rubber has more excellent performance.

The Institute of Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials of the Fraunhofer IFAM company won the first prize in the process flow award for the FlexPlas film. FlexPlas deep draw film uses a plasma polymer release layer to remove large fiber-reinforced plastic parts from molds without the use of conventional release agents.

The Leibniz Institute of Polymers in Dresden and its partner Nanocyl were awarded the first prize for scientific research and technology awards for glass fiber-reinforced plastics that were monitored both in-line and in-situ. Glass fiber-reinforced plastics uses a network of carbon nanotubes that permeates through the boundary layer of conductive fibers. The exuded carbon nanotubes are used like the slashes used in the fiber spinning process. Due to the acoustic emission analysis system used to characterize the failure mechanism of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoset composites, Bayreuth University was also ranked first in the Scientific Technology Award. Bayreuth University explained that this technology can predict life based on dynamic load.

PolyGlas Weirather and composites supplier PolyGlas Weirather received a special award for the successful implementation of the FRP program in a small company. The FRP program was invented for the production of large parts using the RTM closed-mold resin transfer molding process, which can reduce emissions from 10 to 27,000 liters of capacity at production. The advantages of this process are numerous: waste emissions are much lower than hand lay-up processes, heating and vacuuming costs are reduced, and quality is higher. In addition, materials can be preserved by designing thinner walls.

The second prize winner for the Product Application Award is AIREX. The company will produce a new AIREX T92 Seal X foam core material from consumer recycled PET for sandwich panels. In this material, the PET surface seal reduces the cost by cutting 50% of the resin. Although the new AIREX board is heavier than the equivalent PVC board, the panel density injected is similar to that of the PVC board, or lower.

DSM Composite Resins and AkzoNobel Chemical received the third prize for the Product Application Award for curing technology of the new BlueCure cobalt resin. According to the relevant licenses, this technology is currently available.

The injection molding machine manufacturer - Engel GmbH of Austria and its partner Fraunhofer ICT Chemistry Institute won the second prize in the process flow award. Its award-winning product is a fully automated component that combines a series of production stages.

Altair received the third prize for the process flow award for its laminate design software.

Neue Materialien F rth won the second prize for the Scientific Technology Award for the development of the die impregnation process.

The IKV Institute of Plastics Processing won the third prize for scientific research and technology for its water-assisted version of the bolus injection technique.