CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/697353
JULY 2016 4 CompositesWorld FROM THE EDITOR » We composites professionals look at the automotive market with a unique combination of excitement and anxiety. Te excite- ment grows out of the knowledge that the auto industry has a mandate to lose weight, and composites are an obvious choice to help get that done. Te anxiety grows out of uncertainty: What materials will be used — composites? Aluminum? New light steel? How and where will they be applied? Which OEMs will apply them? How will composites ft into the automotive supply chain? And, frankly, we should chalk up some of our anxiety to the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for." Tat is, depending on how composites are applied in the automotive market, some suppliers and fabricators might struggle to meet what could be substantial and unrelenting demand for composite materials and parts. Tere is some irony in this. Te composites industry has covet- ed mainstream automotive applications for so long that it seems to me we are like the persistent, pesky salesman, talking up his products' litany of benefts as he shops his wares to automotive OEMs around the world, trying to get his foot in the door and prove they can do the job. But this is an unfair analogy. It's not fair to the composites industry or to automotive OEMs. Te truth is that composites will not be sold into an automotive program. Composites will earn their way into automotive programs, and only because they meet a specifc structural or aesthetic need cost-efectively. I was reminded of this forcefully this week (it's June 17 as I write this) at CompositesWorld's Termoplastics Composites Confer- ence for Automotive (TCCA), in the Detroit suburb of Novi, MI, US. I was a conference co-chair, along with Matt Naitove, execu- tive editor, and Lilli Sherman, senior editor, of sister publication Plastics Technology. Te conference attracted almost 200 attendees from across the automotive supply chain, who came to see and hear 21 presentations on a variety of material and process tech- nologies aimed at thermoplastic composites for the auto industry. Presentations ranged from the latest on long glass fber-reinforced thermoplastics to carbon fber use in compression molding to simulation of chopped fber orientation in injection molding. What struck me over the day-and-a-half conference was the variety and quality of the material and process innovation presented, and the intensity of the presenters. Tese were not sales- people trying to talk a reluctant automotive industry into buying a product. Tey were technology and material specialists who have listened carefully to what automotive OEMs say they need, and have developed carefully crafted solutions to meet that need. Some solutions are mature, well-developed and in use today. Others are clearly still in development. All of them, though, are highly targeted and designed to leverage the multi-fber, multi-resin, multi-process dynamism of the composites industry. Covestro, for instance, announced at the conference that it has begun working on application of fber-reinforced polycarbonate for the fabrication of Class A automotive body panels. Teijin reported on the status of its compression-molded chopped carbon fber/polyamide composite material for structural vehicle parts. Sigmatex informed attendees about its eforts to incorporate recycled carbon fber and thermo- plastic fbers into its reinforcements product line. Fraunhofer ICT reported on its work developing sandwich structures with tailored, foam-injected cores. And Autodesk revealed details of its research into simulating weld line behavior in injection molding. I will report on all of the conference presentations in next month's CW, but sufce it to say that I was strongly impressed by the creativity, intelligence and forethought represented throughout the conference — on the podium and in the audience. Ultimately, my takeaway message was this: Material and process specialists throughout the automotive and composites supply chain are working cooperatively and collaboratively to drive weight out of vehicles, increase fuel efciency, build in sustainability and usher in a new generation of vehicles that promises to reshape transporta- tion. And that's as good a thing to wish for as I could hope. Cooperating on new-generation ground transport. JEFF SLOAN — Editor- In- Chief