MAG Cincinnati Wins Two JEC Innovation Awards

MAG Cincinnati's (Erlanger, KY) composites expertise was the driving force behind two of the eight awards for innovation that were presented at the 2009 JEC Composites Show in Paris in late March. MAG itself received an award for its role in developing new manufacturing technology for automotive hydrogen/natural gas fuel tanks, using a resin-transfer process to improve burst resistance and increase production output by over 20 times. In another award to the Institut fur Verbundwerkstoffe GmbH (IVW), MAG assisted in the use of its VIPER® Fiber Placement System to develop a method for in-situ consolidation of composite thermoplastic tape. The Composites Innovation competition is sponsored annually by the JEC Group, a worldwide organization of industry researchers and leaders in materials and process technology headquartered in France. Each year, a jury of international experts chooses the best composites innovations, based on their technical interest, market potential, financial impact and originality.

In developing the technology for manufacturing automotive fuel tanks for hydrogen and natural gas, MAG worked as part of a team sponsored by the Department of Energy and organized by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (USA), a not-for-profit collaborative R&D consortium with proven record of commercializing innovative manufacturing technology.

"Automotive OEMs are studying a number of fuel alternatives for future vehicle designs, and a significant hurdle is low-cost, mass-manufacturing technology for a high-pressure vessel for fuel storage," said Richard Curless, Chief Technology Office for MAG Industrial Automation Systems. Replacing filament winding, which required six hours to produce a tank, the new process utilizing resin-transfer molding is expected to take less than 10 minutes and increase output 24 times or more, as it is refined for production scale, according to the JEC. The award describes the process as highly robust and repeatable, with huge market potential in the transportation field. "We intend to offer our customers fully automated fuel-tank production systems that will meet cycle-time and cost requirements, while delivering superior product performance, compared to filament-wound alternatives," Curless added.

The award to IVW involved Airbus as a partner. Airbus and its European partners have purchased a total of ten VIPER Fiber Placement Systems to produce parts for A320, A330, A340, A380 and A400M aircraft. In-situ part consolidation of thermoplastic tape, being developed by IVW, is considered a "Holy Grail" in the composites industry because it could eliminate vast amounts of time and expensive equipment currently needed to consolidate parts in an autoclave, according to Curless. "Thermoplastics have a number of desirable features in terms of toughness, heat resistance and shelf-life, compared to the thermosetting composite tape widely used for aerospace parts," he said. "In-situ consolidation on a production scale could greatly reduce the manufacturing cost for a number of key aircraft parts."

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