Composite Materials
Is it time for you to 're'engineer your products with composites? Composite materials are great engineering materials and "plastic is fantastic" but developing composite products isn't really easy and it takes a lot of work to make dreams come true.
Boeing's experience is a good example.
In 2004, Boeing promised everyone – passengers and airlines – a dream of an aircraft:
- 17% less fuel consumption
- largely increased passenger comfort (increased cabin pressure, more cabin humidity, larger windows)
- largely reduced maintenance cost
This dream - called "Boeing 787 Dreamliner" – became possible by building 50 % out of its structure in composite materials. It offers several distinct advantages over Aluminium:
- better material characteristics such as strength, stiffness, fatigue and corrosion sensitivity
- weight reduction by the material itself and by reducing up to 50000 fasteners
- better aerodynamics resulting in increased fuel economy
Composite materials enthusiasts finally had to wait until December 15 2009 to see the Dreamliner's maiden flight. The "plastic fantastic" dream wasn't easy to realize for Boeing: multiple nightmares (logistical and technical ones) preceded the dream.
In the Composites workshop we will discuss which advantages Composite Materials can offer to create new and unique products, to redesign existing products, … But we will also share wisdom to prevent dreams from becoming nightmares.
Do you want to check if you are ready to compositeer your dream product? Post your own topics and challenges to our Composite experts and get your questions answered during the interactive workshop session.
