CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/620463
12 CompositesWorld PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE JANUARY 2016 High Density Urethane Tooling Board and Core Material (800) 845-0745 • www.precisionboard.com • Closed cell structure • No out-gassing • 15 standard densities • Exceeds aviation flammability standards Make it Precision Board Plus tackle portions of the design — the mandrel spindle, welds and fastener joints, which are quite difcult and, therefore, very time-consuming to model with FE tools — using simple hand calculations laid out in classic mechanical design textbooks. Implementing such techniques, Petersen quips, "can give valuable context and verifcation to go along with all of those colorful FEA stress plots." And this practical decision not only saved much time but also, he claims, increased confdence in the tool outcome. (See "Learn More" on p. 13 for the whole story.) For me, and I hope for others, it was an epiphany. Those engineers I watched on black-and-white TV send the frst men to Earth's moon back in the 1960s? They did it using formulas from books and slide rules, with pencil and paper. Those who today use the digital tools but also know their way around those formulas from dusty old books? I believe they'll have the edge. This business — and it is a business — is still about people, people who have to make intelligent decisions. Something software can't do for us. At least, not yet. With access to all the tools, digital and manual, and starry-eyed fasci- nation with and overdependence on none, composites engineers who make wise choices, and take practical actions that balance performance, cost, resources and time will be able to produce products that truly meet customers' needs in the real world in which we live. The tools will be as useful as the educated people who use them. Turning the corner toward commercial CNTs By Jef Sloan, CW Editor-in-Chief jef@compositesworld.com For several years, there's been a difcult-to-bridge gap between making carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and making them work. Lab research has demonstrated massive mechanical and conductivity benefts to be derived from composite structures that make use of CNTs. But the trick has been how to make them functional and cost-efective in a resin matrix or fber reinforcement. The main problem has been agglomera- tion — the tendency of CNTs in solution (resin matrix) to aggregate and clump, which negates their benefts in the fnal part or structure. There