Yesterday, I took part in the 3rd Annual Forum of the National Composites Network. Held at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon, there were about 100 practitioners from all parts of the supply chain.

I have to start by declaring an interest. A long time ago, I spent a year as the Research Manager for Courtaulds Grafil – their carbon fibre production company. I inherited from the work of my predecessors the mighty Apollo fibres, but the downstream business was fragmented and fairly chaotic. Soon after I moved on, the company was closed and the US assets sold to Mitsubishi Rayon – though I don’t think it was my fault!!

I therefore approached the meeting with a whiff of nostalgia. I found a vibrant community well aware of their challenges. Twenty years ago, the fabrication of components from the fibres we produced was essentially a cottage industry, where craftsmanship was the answer to manufacturing and mass production was a dream. Although there have been many developments I saw the same underlying challenge. There are several well co-ordinated projects looking for a production technology that would enable mass production of components. This task has been made “different” by the evolved approach to what components to make – just about every speaker made the point that modern composite materials weren’t just “black metal”. This means that modern computer aided design can lead to the aspiration that components can be designed almost down to the molecular level to maximise the unique properties of this group of materials – and ratchets up the requirements of the production processes!!

There is also a new challenge for composites. Although there is little doubt that their implementation can lower the energy use of the sorts of products they find application in, the energy costs for their production and the recycling and re-use questions now need to be properly thought through.

Most of these issues were displayed in the presentations. First up was one of those fascinating talks you run across once in a while, Gary Savage (Honda Racing) described the evolution of the use of composites in Formula 1. Starting with a textbook analysis of the environment the cars have to withstand (where high modulus is probably more important than high strength) he demonstrated the increased complexity of the structures used, the radical increase in driver safety and the flexibility of the craftsman approach to product development. The rest of the presentations were a mixture of other examples, from the aerospace and automotive industries and introductions to the facilities developed as part of the National Composites Network.

I was left thinking that the challenge is still there but the community is better prepared to answer it and are working together to do so.

David