Composites Show Off Their Versatility : Exposition: Fiber-reinforced combinations of plastics and glue are being used in everything from tennis racquets to Delta II rockets.
They may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Or maybe since tempered steel.
They are advanced composite materials, and some eye-catching and innovative products made with them went on display here Monday at the Composites in Manufacturing conference and exposition being held through Thursday at the Disneyland Hotel.
These include an experimental lightweight solar-powered car, a bullet-proof fuel tank used in a helicopter gunship, and aircraft fuselage noses.
All are made of composites-- fiber-reinforced combinations of plastics and glue that can be as strong as nearly any metal, yet more cost-effective because of their lighter weights and lower materials costs.
Most products made of composites so far have been developed for the aerospace industry, but the materials are spreading to others for uses such as automotive parts and sporting goods, said Jim Slaughter, spokesman the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, sponsor of the convention. Some newer applications include graphite tennis rackets, fiberglass yachts and recreational vehicle bodies made of composites.
Slaughter said the composites industry has been growing 15% to 20% a year over the past decade, and that the trend toward creating more commercial products has accelerated in the past several years as cuts in defense spending have increased.
“The composites industry mimicked the development of the aerospace industry, and so its center is focused in Southern California,” said William L. D’Agostino, program manager for Alcoa Composites of Santa Ana, a composites manufacturing unit of Alcoa.
But some companies, like other aerospace manufacturers, are moving out of Southern California because of rising operating costs and tough environmental regulations.
Alcoa Composites is moving its 15-person headquarters to San Antonio, Tex., as part of a corporate consolidation. The Alcoa Composites Goldsworthy Engineering division also moved its headquarters from Torrance to Springville, Utah, as part of an expansion of that division.
At the exposition, Alcoa is displaying a fuel tank made for the AH-60 Apache helicopter gunship being deployed in Saudi Arabia. The composite plastic tank is lighter and stronger than metal containers, said Randy A. Jones, director of marketing for Alcoa’s Fibertek subsidiary in Springville, Utah.
Peter Ochsner, a technical engineer for Richmond Aircraft Products in Santa Fe Springs, was showing off an experimental solar-powered electric car made by engineering students at Cal State Northridge. The car body was made of lightweight composites supplied by Richmond Aircraft.
“Since the solar car isn’t as powerful, it’s important to get the weight of the car down,” Ochsner said.
A few Orange County companies are displaying their composites products at the show. McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. in Huntington Beach showed off several of its composites products for space applications. One is a prototype of its cryogenic fuel tank to hold liquid oxygen for the National Aerospace Plane, the proposed aerospace project whose aim is to carry passengers through a subspace orbit from New York to Tokyo in several hours.
Robert Varga, a composites engineer for the space systems unit, said the company employs 40 to 50 composites engineers who have developed products such as an all-composite fairing, or nose tip for the company’s Delta II rockets, and a mast-mounted site used by helicopter gunships to find targets.
