Nanomaterial Manufacturing

Solvay celebrated the ground-breaking of its Greenville, Texas manufacturing footprint expansion that increases the site’s resin mixing capacity to meet the growing needs of commercial and military aerospace composite customers.

Local officials joined the site and project management team for the ceremony.

“Greenville TX is a strategic site for Solvay where in recent years we have invested several million dollars in capacity and modernisation resulting in a double-digit employment growth. This new expansion will enable us to further meet growing customer demand for Solvay’s market leading out of autoclave technologies,” said Tracy Price, executive vice-president global operations, Solvay Composite Materials.

Solvay’s Greenville Texas site currently has over 300 full-time employees and recruiting efforts are ongoing.

www.solvay.com

SpaceX has launched a total of seven satellites, including two for Nasa and five for Iridium, in a single flight from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

A recycled Falcon 9 rocket was used to launch Nasa’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On probes (GRACE-FO) and Iridium’s five NEXT satellites.

Nearly 11 minutes and 30 seconds after the launch, the rocket deployed the GRACE-FO satellites. The Iridium satellites were deployed around an hour after the launch.

SpaceX used the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket to launch the Zuma mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in January this year.

MERRIMACK — Huntsman Corp. of Texas announced this week that it has acquired Merrimack based Nanocomp Technologies.

Although the financial details of the acquisition were not released, both companies say they are pleased with the new development.

Nanocomp Technologies was founded in 2004 and is known for its Miralon products made from pure carbon nanotube materials that have a variety of uses. Two years ago the company’s carbon nanotubes were on board NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter, a solar-powered spacecraft that broke the record for traveling the farthest from the sun.

Scientists have created unique polymer matrices for polymer composites based on novel phthalonitrile monomers. The developed materials possess higher strength than metals, which helps to sufficiently decrease the mass of aircraft parts that operate at high temperatures.

Proactive investment in the development of next-generation thermoplastic solutions has resulted in the completion of Victrex’s new approximately £10 million Polymer Innovation Center.

The centre is fully operational and represents Victrex´s dedication to pioneering research and development focused upon Victrex PEEK polymer and other differentiated grades within the PAEK family of high performance thermoplastics. Recent innovations include the introduction of Victrex AE250 composites for the aerospace industry, which ties in with the company’s polymer-to-parts strategy.

The Polymer Innovation Center will further extend Victrex’s capabilities in innovation and assist customers in the development of technological advances using Victrex PAEK solutions. Co-located at the company´s UK headquarters, the new centre will function as an enabler for rapid prototyping of new parts and components with novel PAEK materials. The manufacture of new and differentiated polyaryletherketones on a technical scale will help in the research and testing of high-performance polymer grades aimed at achieving progress in, for example, composites and 3D printing/additive manufacturing. Victrex is currently leading a consortium backed by Innovate UK to focus on 3D printing. Helping to improve the process for manufacturing existing polymers will also be supported by the new center.

Media are invited to view and photograph Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft, packed with cargo and scientific experiments for its upcoming flight to the International Space Station, at 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Oct. 18, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.

Media also will have an opportunity to speak with NASA and Orbital ATK officials about the targeted no earlier than Nov. 10 mission and the space agency’s effort to send supplies to the space station using commercial companies. The officials available at the event include:

• Sam Scimemi, director for the International Space Station, NASA Headquarters, Washington
• Rick Mastracchio, senior director of operations, commercial resupply services program, Orbital ATK, Dulles, Virginia
• Kurt Eberly, vice president, Antares, Orbital ATK

To attend this event, media must apply for accreditation by contacting Keith Koehler at keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov by noon, Tuesday, Oct. 17. Accreditation is open only to media who are U.S. citizens.

Solvay has added data relative to new Amodel polyphthalamide (PPA), Ryton polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) and KetaSpire polyetheretherketone (PEEK) polymer grades to the Digimat-MX database tool of Digimat software from e-Xstream engineering, to store anisotropic measurements and related micromechanical models.

“As a leading innovator in plastic to metal substitution, Solvay offers advanced computer modelling to its customers and is committed to help them effectively simulate the mechanical performance of its materials when designing lightweight fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composite parts,” reports Michel Dubois, Global Technical Expertise Manager for Solvay’s Speciality Polymers Global Business Unit. “The addition of these Solvay grades to the Digimat-MX library signals an important new phase to further support design and simulation experts seeking to replace metal parts with lightweight advanced polymers and composites.”

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) for producing small to medium-size wing components for the Airbus A330 family of long-range, wide-body jetliners has started operation at a leading aerospace subcontractor in the south of England.

NASA is funding the future of materials development through not only research, but also through education by training future engineers and researchers in the field of computation, manufacturing, material synthesis, and testing.