Lightweighting, composites get focus at CAMX

Plastics News correspondent Roger Renstrom reported these items from exhibitors at the CAMX show Sept. 27-29 in Anaheim, Calif.

General Plastics Manufacturing Co. of Tacoma, Wash., is getting favorable reception for a lightweight rigid polyurethane foam core. Customers include aircraft interior specialist GAL Aerospace Corp. of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec, and equipment manufacturer Bombardier Inc. of Montreal.

General Plastics received validation of its flammability test protocols and used the quality achievement in developing its Last-A-Foam-brand FST-3800 performance core series. The product line was introduced in late 2015 and complies with Ohio State University 65/65 heat release standard, the Federal Aviation Administration's flame and smoke regulations and aircraft manufacturer toxicity requirements.

A. Schulman Inc. of Fairlawn, Ohio, introduced its next-generation Quantum ForgedPreg-brand engineering structural composite for golf clubs, other sporting equipment and high-performance automotive and aerospace parts.

Longtime customer Callaway Golf Co. of Carlsbad, Calif., wanted a lightweight material with a superior surface appearance.

ForgedPreg can replace chopped fiber systems and also is compatible with chopped fiber systems for co-molding and compression molding. ForgedPreg is a continuous carbon fiber-reinforced hybrid vinyl ester molding compound.

Production of the ForgedPreg enabling technology occurs in Bay City, Mich.

Vapormatt Ltd. of Taunton, England, is promoting its wet vapor blast surface processing technology in the U.S. market through a business relationship with Prototools Corp. of Concord, Calif.

Vapormatt's precisely controlled repeatable process is used in more than 100 systems in Europe for polymer composites manufacturing.

The wet-blast process combines compressed air, abrasive media and lubrication-generating water in a slurry form. Recipes can achieve a range of roughness goals.

Ashworth family-owned Vapormatt produces manual and automatic web-blast systems.

Solvay SA's specialty polymers business reports the qualification of its Ixef-brand BM-1524 polyacrylamide under the Boeing BMS 8-270 standard governing nylons for aircraft interiors.

The material is 50 percent glass-fiber-reinforced semi-crystalline semi-aromatic nylon offering an excellent surface finish. The halogen-free flame-retardant polymer delivers metal-like strength and stiffness.

BM-1524 meets the Federal Aviation Administration's 60-second vertical burn and toxic gas emission requirements.

Solvay sees the material as an alternative to conventional thermoplastics such as polyetherimide.

In innovations for automotive applications, Solvay offers its MTM-brand 710-1 epoxy resin prepreg enabling three-minute cycle times for hot compression molding, MTR 760 thermoset resin for manufacturing resin-impregnated carbon fiber tailored blanks and the two-part MTR 750 epoxy resin for high-pressure resin transfer molding processes.

Solvay is based in Brussels.

Duna-USA Inc. of Baytown, Texas, introduced its Dunapox-brand Blue Sea 125 epoxy sealer for high-temperature applications up to 400° F without cracking or degradation.

A user can apply the sealer to polyurethane, epoxy and other materials for tooling and modeling boards. After curing the sealer has a Shore D hardness of 85.

Separately for a new market, Duna-USA is partnering with Electro-Tech Machining of Long Beach, Calif., in evaluating the potential in graphite tooling and composites sealing applications.

Duna-USA also has a plant in Ludington, Mich., and is a business unit of Duna-Corradini SpA of Soliera, Italy.