Dispatch from the London Design Festival | Carbon Laminated Scrims Fabric For Building

BF: Both. 3Di has been evolving for 6-8 years, but no-one was thinking of a polyester product. We want to better serve all the market segments and the cruising market is an opportunity for us. How could we help with better sails and better durability? Then a light bulb went on: could we build a white polyester sail in our 3Di process?

AkzoNobel (Amersfoort, The Netherlands, and Chicago, Ill.) reported that it has extended its portfolio of cobalt-free curing solutions with the launch of its second-generation Nouryact accelerators. Based primarily on iron, the new “eco-premium” accelerators are said to work in a wide range of temperatures and have a low impact on the color of end-use products. They also boast easy replacement for existing cobalt-based accelerators and reprotedly, in some cases, have been shown to outperform cobalt, enabling curing behavior that is not achievable by conventional systems. All Nouryact accelerators are said to be 100 percent cobalt-free. The BlueCure umbrella brand is an initiative of AkzoNobel and DSM Composite Resins (Schaffhausen, Switzerland) that covers innovative cobalt-free curing technologies and products. The products are available to all resin and component manufacturers in the composites industry.

The story of solar-powered flight began November 1974 when the Sunrise I model airplane flew for 20 minutes at Camp Irwin, Calif. Designed by R.J. Boucher of Astro Flight Inc. (Bicycle Lake Army Airfield, Fort Irwin, Barstow, Calif.) under contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, Arlington, Va.), Sunrise I was later seriously damaged in flight by a sudden sandstorm. Sunrise II took flight in September 1975, but also was damaged, in this case, due to failure in the control system. Not quite a year later, in Germany, Fred Militky flew a solar-powered model, Solaris, in three flights of longer than two minutes each. Visions of manned solar flight weren’t realized until May 1980, when Dr. Paul McCready of AeroVironment Inc. (Monrovia, Calif.) flew the Gossamer Penguin in the world’s first piloted, solar-powered flight.

Remarkably, the 11 boats built so far have weights within 5 kg/11 lb of each other, and those same boats, outfitted with rigging and numerous other composite and metallic components, vary by only 35 kg/77 lb. “This comes back to our goal of making the boat the best it can be,” says Waimer. “There is no extra advantage to be gained after it has been produced.”

Leigh’s offers a complete system from primer to topcoats: previously, it says, the oil industry had to source the various coats from different suppliers. M90 provides protection up to H120 and J120 on all types of structural steel members, bulkheads and deck areas. The solvent-free formulation allows film thicknesses from 1-7mm in one application.

The seat warmers in Andersson’s car are barely hot before he finishes his commute from Genoa to North Sails Building No. 1, in Minden, where up a flight of stairs and to the left, is his tidy office, sparsely decorated, save for a framed Artemis Racing catamaran poster from the 33rd America’s Cup. His tall windows, looking west, perfectly frame the snow-capped Sierra peaks. He uses a stand-up desk, healthier, but also makes it easier to dart to and from the ground floor “loft” to check on sails in various stages of final construction.

Design Solution: Use a unique carbon/epoxy prepreg layup to manufacture the lightest professional bike frame ever produced yet still meet all safety and performance requirements for racing conditions. 

At the pinnacle of professional big-boat ­racing, a little collaboration goes a long way toward elevating everyone’s performance.

Armacell also offers customized formulations of ArmaFORM PET Foil. Compared to other thermoplastic foil products, ArmaFORM PET Foil has:

“There was a long period of drawing where ‘anything goes.’ We tried wheeled vehicles, hovercraft, tank-like treaded vehicles,” Johnston says. “I personally felt that wheels and treads were too Earth-based, not exotic enough for the Empire. I remembered seeing a U.S. Steel brochure while I was in the industrial design program at Cal State Long Beach.”

Since ArmaFORM PET Foil is a recyclable product made out of 100% recycled material, it can help the automotive industry and other industries in their efforts towards sustainable solutions. In the automotive sector, the PET foil finds use in the fabrication of trunk lining, wheel protection, chamber absorbers, roof liner, door water shields and much more. Roofing materials, padding under flooring or cladding panels are some of the applications of the PET foil in the building and construction industry.

Why are you sending out measurers to everyone who orders a sail? Aren’t those measurements already known?