Until recently, patent restrictions limited Rimtec from serving the North American market directly. Starting in 2009, Rimtec will serve the North American market through Zeon Chemicals, the U.S. subsidiary of Rimtec’s parent Zeon Corporation.

According to a press release, the companies will officially announce the partnership at the COMPOSITES+POLYCON. Their booth will feature Rimtec’s Telene DCPD resins, which allow a high level of freedom and efficiency for creating to small- to medium-sized series of large parts, including small-scale wind turbines.

A MyPower wind turbine will be on display at the ZEON/Rimtec booth No. 129.
 

It’s not as mysterious as you think: ““The real secret to closed molding is attention to detail. It’s excruciating, continuous and throughout the process,” says Mike Angerer, president of manufacturer New Boston RTM Inc. “Open molding is very commercially viable because it’s very flexible. It doesn’t take the same accuracy of materials or process, because you’re able to make changes on the fly and there are multiple steps involved where you can make adjustments. With closed molding, it’s a one-shot deal.” On the other hand, closed molding can yield more accurate parts and a cleaner work environment.

Angerer made the transition to closed molding over a period of many years. Fortunately, the learning curve isn’t as high as it used to be, he says. At COMPOSITES+POLYCON, he’ll lead an education session titled How Critical Is Process Control to RTM/ RTM Light? Designed for anyone interested in the process, the session will highlight common problems that manufacturers experience using closed molding, including poor part fill, poor surface quality and losing consistency of shape with molds. 
 
Angerer anticipates greater adoption of closed molding as a result of the economic downturn. “What’s happening is that everybody is looking for something different, so you’re getting industries and people looking at different materials,” he says. “Our industry is looking at anything else we can replace. The challenge is that most of those other materials have a higher degree of innate accuracy to them when you process them. When you stamp a piece of metal, the accuracy is great. When you cut a piece of wood, it’s pretty darn accurate. To get into these other industries, you’re going need a process that’s clean and accurate.”

This session takes place on Thursday, Jan. 15 from 2 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. For more information, click here.

Interest in closed molding processes continues to grow as economic and regulatory pressures affect the way composites products are manufactured. The need to produce quality parts, reduce material
waste and minimize emissions is driving the adoption of closed molding technology.

Manufacturers and fabricators can learn about closed molding through a series of educational videos offered by ACMA. Filmed live at ACMA’s Dynamics of Composites conference in Dayton, Ohio, the videos demonstrate how different closed molding techniques can increase efficiency and reduce
costs.

The following videos are available for the first time at COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009:

• Resin Transfer Molding Controls Key to Bottom Line Controls
• Light Resin Transfer Molding in the 21st Century
• Advanced Techniques of Light Resin Transfer Molding
• How to Build a Closed-Cavity Bag Mold
• Advanced Techniques in Vacuum Infusion

To purchase the videos, visit the ACMA Booth or email Adam Seery at aseery@acmanet.org.

Baristas mix coffee beans from different regions to produce blends with unique characteristics. A variety of factors affect flavor and aroma, including how long the beans are roasted and how finely they’re ground.
 
Likewise, companies that supply fillers and additives to composites manufacturers work with different materials to produce blends with a variety of performance characteristics. Alumina trihydrate (ATH) and calcium carbonate are two of the most common materials used by manufacturers to add bulk to parts, extend the resin and improve fire resistance.

Adjusting proportions of materials affects the filler’s characteristics and cost. Suppliers also modify the materials themselves by processing them in different ways: “You can modify surface areas, particle size distribution or modify the energy of the particle itself in order to lower the viscosity and lower the amount of resin used,” says Don Mills, ATH director of sales for Huber Engineered Materials, Atlanta.

Huber Engineered Materials is introducing three new fillers at its COMPOSITES+POLYCON booth based on these concepts. “The MoldX product line has been formulated to reduce the amount of resin demand,” Mills says.

The MoldX A series is a proprietary blend that Mills says is meant to improve products’ fire ratings.The MoldX C series is meant to help lower the cost of manufacturing parts. “It is blended calcium carbonate and ATH, and the intention is to allow you to get higher filler loadings in your current systems, maintain your current physical properties, and get more filler into the part and reduce the cost of the part,” he says. The MoldX W series utilizes a special grade of white ATH, used primarily in cast polymer applications and other products that require a translucent appearance.

For more information about Huber Engineered Materials and MoldX products, visit Booth 617 at the COMPOSITES+POLYCON Conference in Tampa, Jan. 15-17.

Bob Noble doesn’t hesitate when asked to project the future of environmentally conscious manufacturing. The CEO of Envision Solar, San Diego, Calif., has been following green trends for 30 years. “All of us who have been around for decades are surprised by how fast things are changing now,” he says. “There’s no reason to be focused on anything else, frankly. The comparative advantage that companies when they’re green or are moving in that direction are extraordinary.”

During an educational session at COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009, Noble will talk about the role that composites can play in sustainable manufacturing. “This is a talk about the convergence of the inevitable future of clean technology growth in the United States and worldwide and the potential for composites,” he says. “Composites manufacturers—as soon as they have products that are green—they will be point to that project every time they present their work. I’ve seen architects who didn’t have any green products and then a client forced them to a very green project, and out of the hundreds of buildings they’ve done, that one project is what gets them new projects.”

Envision Solar integrates solar energy into buildings, and Noble has discovered that composites play a key role in the evolution of these buildings. “We’ve been in the process of developing designs with our consultant and contractor partners for composite structures, columns, trusses and others that have been made out of steel,” he says. “It appears that with composites, which are a quarter of the weight, it may be considerably less expensive to build these solar integrated buildings”

This session takes place Thursday, Jan. 15 from 4 p.m to 4:50 p.m. For more information, click here.

A panel of experts will review the regulatory landscape and answer questions about emissions and other topics during the session Composites Air Permit Workshop at COMPOSITES+POLYCON. Owners and employees of manufacturing and supplier companies who are responsible for environmental and regulatory compliance should attend the sessions, says Panelist Jack Benton, CEO of Benton and Associates, Lubbock, Texas. “We give a refresher of the regulations, a fine-tuning based on our dealings during the preceding year with regulators in various states,” he says. “We discuss how these regulations are being applied on a day-to-day basis and d how they’re being interpreted by the various regulatory agencies.”

The floor is open to questions from attendees. Benton also thinks some of the more pressing topics that come up will include the following:

• The impact of a ruling in Texas on odor and emissions.
• Clarification of MACT standards that affect composites shops.
• The future of legislative and regulatory activity, including the impact of a new Democratic administration and whether EPA will pursue enforcement more aggressively. 
•  The review of styrene and its potential health effects by regulatory agencies. 

The session takes place Thursday, Jan. 15 from 2 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. For more information, click here.

G.K. Mangelson hears horror stories like this one all the time: An affluent couple hired a professional to paint the interior of their home. The painter built scaffolding to reach the ceiling, but the scaffolding broke. The painter fell, injured himself, and then brought a lawsuit against the couple. “The fact the accident occurred in their home made them liable,” says Mangelson, a senior advisor for the American Society for Asset Protection (ASAP), Las Vegas. 

“The tort system is really weird today,” Mangelson says. “You don’t have to do anything wrong to be wiped out. You just have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” During his session Advanced Liability Protection Strategies at COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009, Mangelson will offer advice to business owners in three key areas: Lawsuit protection, income tax reduction and estate planning. “Anybody who is running a business and has accumulated any kind of equity in their personal lives and in their businesses needs to attend this meeting,” he says.

The path to asset protection begins with proper titling. “One of the most misunderstood concepts is how to title your assets,” Mangelson says. “In other words, we have assets in our personal name or joint ownership, and that’s the worst kind of titling one can have if a person is interested in protection from lawsuits.” He’ll explain the advantages and disadvantages of different business entities and why he thinks LLPs and LLCs are the best.

Business owners often need to form more than one legal entity to protect their assets. Mangelson cites one example in which one partner in a business made a sexual remark to an employee. “Because the other partner was an owner too, the lawsuit included both of them, and they both lost the business,” he says. “You need to be to protect your personal assets, because even though they were both involved in the quagmire professionally, it shouldn’t have affected the one partner’s personal life the way it did.”

This session takes place Thursday, Jan. 15 from 10 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. For more information, click here.

COMPOSITES+POLYCON is one month away. To make sure you get the most out of your investment, ACMA has compiled a short list of things you should do beforehand to ensure a beneficial and enjoyable experience.

View the Show Website. Visit www.acmashow.org for all the up-to-date information you need to plan your trip. Our Conference department has spent countless hours finding deals for attendees, so take advantage of them. Venture past the show homepage to side tabs. There you will find exhibitor information, the conference program, maps—you can even make restaurant reservations!

Create a Game Plan. A show is meant to benefit your business, so make the most of the short amount of time you’re there. If you’re going alone, remember that you represent the interests of your entire company. At least one month before the show, sit down with fellow employees (remember their time schedule is not the same as yours) and review the exhibitor list. Discuss people they need you to contact, booths to visit, questions they would like you to ask and information they need you to gather or disseminate—and write it down!

Schedule ahead. If possible contact exhibitors ahead of time to schedule an appointment. The My Planner option of the Web site can help you find exhibitors and budget your time. Debbie Ayres, senior director of Membership at ACMA, also suggests looking at the attendee list. “See who you know and also who you want to know ahead of time, it will save fruitless searching and time at the actual show,” she says. Then, on your own, rank educational sessions that you would like to attend. Rank a few classes that you feel you can’t miss and have a back-up session in case the first is not what you expected.

Contact Information. Remember to leave the appropriate contact information with your coworkers and on your voicemail for clients who may call in your absence. To save yourself the post-business trip scramble, set your out-of-office reply to one day after you actually return. That way, your first day back is spent digging through emails without the expectation that you respond to everything in one day.

Check the weather. Before you pack, check your destination weather, and choose business casual appropriate clothing. Suitcases and shipping cost money, so use space wisely! Bring the right kind and the right amount of anything you need, and no more.

Manufacturers and designers with an interest in the defense market should attend Shawn Walsh’s education session called Development of Mass Efficient Warfighter Materials at COMPOSITES+POLYCON.

Walsh, who works at the Army Research Lab, headquartered in Adelphi, Md., will present a case study demonstrating how thermoplastics can be used in military applications, specifically helmet manufacturing. “What we quickly identified as the bottleneck wasn’t the material availability or the quality of the material,” Walsh says. “The missing link was twofold: a reliable thermoforming process specific to the ballistic thermoplastic materials and efficient preforming techniques to maximize performance and minimize touch labor and waste.”

The project resulted in thermoplastic-based helmets with a minimum 20 percent increase in ballistic mass efficiency. “The key is to do more with less,” Walsh says. “We’re always limited by the weight we can put on the soldier. We never want to encumber them more than we have to.”

Part of Walsh’s presentation will focus on how the military partners with industry to produce superior performing products. Formal partnerships are often facilitated through the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology Program (ManTech). Large and small companies work through the program to solve manufacturing and design challenges that might otherwise not be commercially viable. “Some of these smaller companies are more aggressive and have novel approaches to thermoplastic forming,” Walsh says.

This session takes place Friday, Jan. 16 from 11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. For more information, click here.

“You should look at a family business as the goose that lays a golden egg. It’s okay to cut up the egg, but you should preserve the goose,” says Chris Lansing, president and CEO of Lansing Building Products. At COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009, Lansing will present an education session titled Preserving a Family-Owned Business, during which he’ll offer 10 maxims for running a family business successfully in turbulent times.

The first maxim: “Treat your family like a family, and your business like a business,” he says. Lansing, who is a second-generation owner of the 55-year-old company, learned many of his lessons during the first transition. Two of his four children now work for the company. “The owner of a business is typically president, CEO and chairman of the board, and he has a fiduciary duty to the business side,” Lansing says. “But he’s also the head of a family and has to continually balance and reconcile those competing issues.” One strategy involves hiring a family counselor or creating a Board of Directors that includes non-family members as means to communicating and solving conflicts. 

This session takes place on Thursday, Jan. 15 from  11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. For more information, click here.

Ken Lipovsky, cast polymer application specialist at Reichhold Inc., has hosted Ask the Experts panels at COMPOSITES+POLYCON and regional events for the cast polymer and solid surface manufacturers for nearly 10 years. The format is simple, but it works. Manufacturers ask questions about any topic, and a group of industry leaders answers them. “There are always a lot of questions with regards to troubleshooting, but lately, it’s been a lot of business and marketing questions as well,” he says.

Attendees sometimes come with questions in hand, or the sessions they attend might prompt new questions. “If there are questions that people don’t feel comfortable asking in public, they can submit their questions ahead of time,” Lipovsky says. This year, his expert panel includes representatives from resin, filler, equipment and manufacturing companies.

The session takes place Friday, Jan. 16 from 9 a.m. to 9:50 a.m. For more information and a list of panelists, click here.

To submit questions ahead of time, email Ken at ken.lipovsky@reichhold.com.

Even as resin suppliers incorporate more bio-based material into their products, it doesn’t always make sense to use them, says Roman Loza, PhD, research fellow at Ashland Performance Materials. “Usually where it makes sense is when there’s some potential for marketing, like if you’d be selling tractors to farmers,” says Loza. He cites Ashland’s partnership with John Deere to incorporate bio-based resins in an SMC process to produce tractor hoods: “It was targeted to show farmers that their products are ending up in the equipment they’re using for harvesting.”
 
Other scenarios in which it may make economic sense to use ‘green’ products include government programs such as Bio-Preferred and the USGBC’s LEED program, where the use of the products is driven by incentives.

Otherwise, green products face challenges in getting adopted by the marketplace. Though end users pay lip service to environmentally friendly products, they hesitate to pay a premium for them and balk at changing their processes. Suppliers are working to accommodate those needs. “The consumers of our products, don’t want to invest a lot of time and effort and money to change their processes, so we’ve designed our products to be drop-ins to their existing processes,” says Loza.“They ask if there’s a price premium they’re going to have to pay to use green technology. The answer to that is ‘not necessarily.’ We try to price our green resins competitively with non-green resins.”

During the session Sustainability and Green Composites: Unsaturated Polyester Resins from Renewable Resources at COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009, Loza will talk about bio-based resin alternatives, including Ashland's ENVIREZ products.

The session takes place Friday, Jan. 16 from 10 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. For more information, click here.

The Think Composites program, a continuing education partnership with the Boy Scouts of America, will take place at COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009 in Tampa, Fla., on Saturday, January 17, 2009.

This year, Boy Scouts will make skateboards, tour the main hall and participate in PlastiVan activities. This event will count as partial credit towards their Composite Materials Merit Badge and Chemistry Merit Badge. Small group leaders and skateboard laminating demonstrators are needed to accompany the Boy Scouts between 8:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

For information on volunteering, contact Lauren McCaughey at 703-525-0511 or email lmccaughey@acmanet.org.
 

Pretend that you’re not a composites manufacturer. Instead, imagine that you’re a surgeon about to operate on a patient. You reach for your scalpel, but it’s not there. It’s on the other side of the room. So you walk across the room to retrieve it. You walk back to your patient and make the first incision. You reach for a piece of gauze to soak up the blood. But there’s no gauze. It’s on the other side of the room. So you walk across the room again to retrieve it.

Your manufacturing operation may not be surgery, but the two scenarios are more in common than you think, says Liam Cahalane, industrial engineer at The Boeing Company. “If you’re a surgeon, you want all the necessary items you need to do the operation around you,” he says. “It’s the same concept for production. You want everything you need to build up the composite that you’re creating. You want the raw materials, the bagging, the tools, the tape, as close as possible, so you’re not wasting time walking to get whatever you need.”

Many manufacturers incur unnecessary costs by storing the materials they need far from the shop floor. Cahalane will illustrate how companies can reduce waste and optimize their production processes during an education session at COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009.  The session, titled Utilizing a Capacitated Raw Material Storage to Minimize Manufacturing Cost, focuses on shop planning and lean manufacturing concepts, including point of use and push-pull production. 

“One of the major points of my presentation is not having warehouses so far away from where the work is actually getting done so you have to travel by foot or by cart to get the materials,” Cahalane says. “If you put the storeroom very close to where the work is being done, you can fill the items as the work is being done.” For example, at one company, Cahalane installed a freezer in the clean room to store small amounts of raw materials that needed refrigeration so they had everything they needed on site.

The benefits of this kind of production are obvious and relatively easy to measure, Cahalane adds: “It creates a low-cost production environment, where you can increase your throughput because people are actually working on what they’re supposed to be working on.”

Cahalane’s session takes place on Friday, Jan. 16 from 10:00 a.m  to 10:50 a.m.

Half the time, Kevin Spoo can tell what's wrong with a composites product just by looking at it. "Look for discolorations. Look to see if the glass is wet out with a simple dye penetrant. Look at the smoothness of surface--is it supposed to be that way? Sometimes you just put it up to your nose and smell it. All the senses are applied," he says.

As a senior scientist for Owens Corning, Spoo has solved a range of mysteries regarding bad products. Most often, he says, problems occur when manufacturers switch resins or fibers, or when they introduce a new design or personnel. "Most of the process engineers are younger folks who may not have seen a problem that some of the old guard has seen," he says. "The big thing is to find someone in the plant who has been around the block a few times."

Using real case studies, Spoo will share some of his problem-solving techniques during an educational session The Composite Detective: Troubleshooting Composite Problems at COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009. "I'm going to go cover the primary tools," he says. "Experience is one tool, finding someone that knows more than you about composites. The second tool is to use a variety of ASTM standards," he says. He will also talk about more complex and expensive options, including scanning electron microscopy.

Among the case studies Spool will consider are the following real-life scenarios:
 

• A manufacturer noted that instead of the fibers turning clear in the resin, they stuck out like straws.
• A manufacturer saw blisters on the gel coasted surface
• Paint applied to a composites surface panel caused fish-eyes
• Pultruded parts cracked, and the fabricator did not get the mechanical performance he expected.

Spoo's presentation takes place Friday, Jan. 16 from 3 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. For more information, click here.

A change in the International Building Code will affect fabricators who supply products to the building and construction markets. Previously, the code failed to give guidance on how to use fiberglass reinforced plastics in various applications. It was treated as an exception to other materials, including aluminum, concrete, glass, stone, steel and wood. Revisions to the 2009 IBC will correct the discrepancy and give architects, engineers, specifiers and code officials a benchmark from which to approve the uses of FRP.

However, the change in the IBC requires fabricators to engage in product listing and labeling. Specifiers and code officials rely on third-party agencies such as Underwriters Laboratories and Southwestern Research Institute for assurance that products meet certain standards.

During the educational session Ensuring Success in the Building Code with Product Listing and Labeling at C+P 2009, speaker Nicholas Dembsey, PhD, associate professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will talk about the content of the code change and what composites companies can do to implement a successful listing and labeling process in their facilities.

“Step one for the fabricator, if they want to be involved in the building environment, is that they need to know what products they want to sell to the building market, and then they need to contact a listing agency,” Dembsey says. A task group formed under the auspices of ACMA is working on a document to help fabricators with best practices in dealing with the process. For instance, when fabricators don’t  give agencies enough information about their products upfront, they can find themselves paying for more testing than is necessary.

Once the agency gathers information from the fabricator, it performs test on the products. “The agency will come to a facility and evaluate how a product is being mad. The fabricator works with the listing agency to develop a quality control process, and the agency verifies that’s what the fabricator is doing,” Dembsey says. “The agency will give a listing saying you passed certain tests, and will give you a label to put on the products saying you passed.”

Labeling allows specifiers and code officials to approve products without needing to know the technical differences between them. “The officials working with FRP needing to verify the safety of the building. They don’t necessarily know how to distinguish different  types of FRP,” Dembsey says. “Labeling gives the local authority who’s using a local amended version of the IBC a way to talk with FRP fabricators about getting products into buildings that makes sense.”

Dembsey’s session takes place on Thursday, Jan. 15, from 3 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. For more information, click here.

Composites already have begun to replace steel and other traditional materials, but typically they’ve been limited to low- and medium-volume markets. “The high-volume markets for composites have been limited,” says Dan Buckley, manager of R&D at American GFM, Chesapeake, Va. “There has been movement in that direction with thermoplastics composites, but thermoplastics won’t handle structural applications, because they won’t handle continuous loads.”

In his educational session Preforming Engineering Fabrics For High Volume Structural Applications at C+P 2009, Buckley will talk about how to make complex, high-volume performs. “We’re talking about things you want to make many of, we’re you’re going to be making 3,000 to 5,000 parts or more,” he says. “We’re not talking about twenty minutes or an hour to fill a part. We’re talking about 20 to 40 seconds.”

The session is geared towards manufacturers who use closed molding processes for structural and semi-structural applications. Buckley will discuss a process for using different materials in different locations, and the ability to include core materials, fasteners and metal inserts in the preforms. “The first things you need to think about are the volume—whether it will justify preforming—what type of infusion process you’re  going to use, and most importantly the conformability of the material,” he says.

Some of the markets that could benefit from products made by this process include aviation, automotive, marine and recreation. “It could be as simple as a manhole cover,” Buckley says. “Anything that has to take a high load repeatedly.”

Buckley’s session takes place Thursday, Jan. 15 from 11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. For more information, click here.

Greg Rose, southwest regional manager at ITW Plexus, asked four different chemists at the company to share their thoughts about what it means to be “green” in the composites industry. “The responses were all over the board,” he says. “There were four completely different responses of what they thought was green.” It illustrated to him the need for a common vision internally and externally about how the industry communicates its greenness. “Having different sets of ideas didn’t invalidate any one of the ideas,” he says. “We just need to think about what we mean and be able to communicate what we mean when we talk about green so that it doesn’t make people feel like they’ve’ been tricked or there was a major omission.”

Rose plans to bring up this topic during his education session “Measuring Green in Composites Adhesives” at C+P 2009. “What I’ve seen is that many people mean different things when they say ‘green,’” he says. Some people measure green products in terms of their health effects and others define green in terms of their overall environmental impact. “There are whole systems out there that are based only on the exposure of the material,” he says. “Others take a broader look at the sustainability of the product.”

Defining standards for green in the composites industry may take time, but it’s important to start now, Rose says. “People are incorporating green in part of their decision making process, but it’s like you are deciding which product to buy based on price, but I haven’t told you how much your money was worth,” he says. “Most industries haven’t gone beyond a superficial definition of green. So what you have are a lot of people who are reaching for goals that aren’t well defined.”

Rose’s session takes place on Friday, Jan. 16 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. For more information, click here.
 

It’s nice to feel needed, but a small business that depends too heavily on its owner’s day-to-day involvement can actually inhibit growth. “What happens is that small business folks don’t really have a business. It’s more like a 24-hour-a-day job,” says Douglas Caudle, president of Piedmont Fiberglass, Taylorsville, N.C.

Caudle says that owners who get too involved in every aspect of the business—from production to sales to operations—don’t have the time or energy to plan for the future. He’ll share ways to go from working in a business to working on a business during his educational session “Can Your Small Composites Business Operate Without You?” at C+P 2009.

The two most important things an owner can do are hire the right people and create a process-based operations plan. “Evaluate your staff. Look for folks that can run with the ball,” Caudle says. Piedmont underwent its own two-year process of finding the right people and documenting its processes. “Our company was a one-person operation. One person handled everything from sales to ordering toilet paper to production and shipping.”

Now the company has plant managers and supervisors in the production department and a dealer liaison to handle sales. It also has its processes written down so that when people change, the system remains in place. “A critical part is having these systems written out, including how we ship things and package things. It’s taking the person out of it and operating according to the system.”

Caudle’s session takes place Thursday, January 15 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, click here.

Composites business owners should take more advantage of information technology, says Tom Deller, president of Danicose Inc., a Chagrin Falls, Ohio-based consultancy. In his education session Manage for Competitive Advantage at C+P 2009, Deller will focus on how IT systems can help owners and entrepreneurs streamline their management functions, which include planning, leading, organizing and controlling.

Adopting robust IT systems is important because they help integrate day-to-day tasks performed in various departments. For instance, data on sales calls and bookkeeping can more easily be aggregated and shared with the right technology. “You need to see the interrelationship of these different departments, and what better way to do that than with information technology?” IT systems are also necessary to collect date for other reasons, such as ISO certifications. “You’ve got to generate or actively inspect and chart and understand the processes in order to control them.

Deller also will speak about the importance of continuing education, whether it’s through formal, accredited programs or informal classes. “You can take courses in selling, management and finance areas. These are all courses that can be taken through the years,” he says. “There are a million of them. You need a constant ongoing involvement in some kind of educational process that builds on your experience."

Lifecycle assessments help companies and their customers determine the social, environmental and economic impact of the products they make. Different modeling methods are used to calculate life cycle impact, depending on your companies’ purpose, says Dr. Michael Lepech, assistant professor at Stanford University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Some lifecycle assessments focus solely on internal process improvements. More rigorous assessments are conducted for companies that want to make an “environmental product declaration,” and market their green processes. Going through the assessment supports your marketing claims with credible data. “When your customers ask how green you are, you have real numbers to give them,” Lepech says.

Lepech, who earned a PhD for his research in making cement-based composites greener, will describe the stages of a lifecycle during his session Life Cycle Assessment Methods for Design and Manufacturing of Sustainable Composites at C+P 2009. He’ll address some of the metrics used in assessments to calculate impact, including global warming potential, acidification and energy resources consumed.

Lepech points out that, unlike other materials, composites are characterized by their “embodied energy” as well as their “combustion energy.” The former describes any material that could potentially be used as fuel, while the latter is the amount of energy it takes to make the product. Composites contain embodied energy while materials such as aluminum and concrete don’t. “There a much more efficient and limited use of energy,” he says.

For more information on Lepech’s session, click here.

If you think blowing air on a laminate helps the resin cure faster, you should attend The Validity of Myths About the Lamination Process, an education session at C+P 2009. “That’s one of the most common myths,” says John Hewitt, technical service manager at Interplastic and one of the session’s presenters. “It does air dry, but it’s not curing. It’s not a paint. If you dry too much off on a thin laminate, you can actually cause undercure, especially now that the industry has moved to a low monomer product.”

Hewitt and two other presenters will answer questions you have about the lamination manufacturing process. “Many people are doing things they think are helping their process, but they’re actually hurting their processes,” Hewitt says. Here are some of the myths Hewitt says he hears regularly:

Myth 1:The higher the peroxide, the better the resin cure.

Myth 2: After a long time, the secondary bond to an ortho or Iso resin is much better than to a DCPD resin.

Myth 3: The exotherm of skincoat laminate should be higher than that of the bulk resin.

Myth 4: Shrinkage of the resin is the major factor in prerelease

Myth 5: Thix index is a good indicator of resistance to drainage.

Myth 6: Covering a laminate will slow down the cure rate

The panel will address these common beliefs and answer questions from attendees. To submit your questions ahead of time, email jhewittresinguy@hotmail.com.
 

1. "This was our first visit to the ACMA show, and it fully met our expectations. For our company it was a very successful show in the way of networking, exhibitors etc."
2. "The convention offered a great opportunity to find out what's new and what's impacting the industry."
3. "This was one of the most professional shows I have ever attended."
4. "The Technical Sessions and Exhibit Hall were the primary focus of my trip, and I was not disappointed."
5. "Last year was a great convention. It provided the industry with just what it needed, and everyone seemed to enjoy it."
6. "What we like the best is the networking we can do with both our suppliers and customers. Where else can you see so many people in your industry in such a short period of time all in one location?"

Stay tuned for dedicated and exclusive coverage of the largest composites show in North America.