JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #39 - March/April 2008 - 92

SPECIAL JEC COMPOSITES 2008 System integration, design, tooling and manufacturing > Stand B42 Established since 2002, CoTech, Inc. is an employee-owned company that boasts experienced engineers with expertise in system integration, design, tooling and manufacturing for aerospace and commercial composite systems. In Q4 2007, the UMC Group’s venture capital company became the first corporate shareholder. The company’s president, Dr. Ching-Long Ong, was the deputy general director of the Aeronautical Research Laboratory of the Chugn-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST). He has more than 30 years experience in composite design, manufacturing and system integration. He was also director of the SMART (Sub Millimeter Array Radio Telescopes) programme and successfully integrated and developed the antenna system. He is the founder of the Sampe Taiwan Chapter and www.cotechinc.com a Sampe fellow. CoTech is certified to ISO 9001:2000. New generation of carbon fibre and PAN precursor winders > Stand J63 From cars and aerospace to sporting goods, laptop computers and musical instruments, carbon fibres are an important component in many articles of daily use. For the efficient winding of these highstrength yarns, SAHM has introduced the new SAHM 800 series of winders for carbon fibres and PAN precursor. All the winders are equipped with a central process control and a programmable electronic wind ratio function. They can be programmed by parameters stored in the central process control unit. With these electronically programmable functions, customers can now make product changes without changing the mechanical components of the winder. Carbon fibre and PAN precursor producers can now make quick and efficient product changes. Down times are minimized. Normal wear and tear compo-nents, spare parts, and maintenance times have been greatly reduced. The precursor – most commonly PAN (polyacrylonitrile) – is the raw material used to produce carbon fibre. PAN precursor winders are available in 120 kg and 300 kg version. For carbon fibres, SAHM offers an automatic winder and a manual winder for precise winding. www.sahmwinder.de Measuring system for online monitoring > Stand E24 Despatch Industries has been offering innovative thermal processing solutions for over a century, providing oxidation ovens to carbon fibre producers for the past 30 years. Despatch has pioneered the centre-to-end airflow technology, which combines product uniformity with a low cost of ownership. Despatch is now introducing a R&D-scale oxidation oven that will enable customers to optimize their processes and evaluate the centre-to-end airflow technology. The R&D-scale oxidation oven will produce results that are similar to larger, full-scale production ovens. Despatch manufactures multiple-size production ovens, including the CTE 3500 which is designed to produce 2,700 tons of carbon fibre annually. Customer testing has shown that the centre-to-end airflow technology can produce more than 20% higher density gain than cross-flow ovens. Most customers translate that to faster line speeds and greater throughput. Either way, it means that customers can get more for their investment when using a centre-to-end oxidation oven. www.despatch.com Enhanced system offers real-time network diagnosis > Stand T9 Eastman’s Eagle S3 provides superior cutting performance and increased throughput, capable of marking, cutting, drilling and punching virtually any flexible material. Enhanced with a network-based motion control system, the Eagle S3 incorporates a realtime digital network and machine intelligence for additional diagnostic, performance and reliability benefits. The machine is capable of monitoring itself, as well as reporting status alerts before operational faults or errors can occur. Communicating over a single network ring allows the machine to run even if a network cable break occurs. Previous Eagle machines were analogue systems that required a large amount of cabling. Each machine had 14 to 20 different types of cables with over 300 m of cable required to accommodate the long cable runs between the control box and the machine. Eastman wanted to reduce the amount of cable required for the machine, thus reducing potential cable failures in the field. By transitioning to an all-digital SynqNet network and taking advantage of its large data bandwidth, Eastman can now perform all system level controls over SynqNet and use one network for supporting both motion control and I/O. SynqNet offers the possibility of creating a motion network with centralized control and distributed hardware, making it possible to place discrete I/O modules in more convenient locations for shorter cable runs. As a result, the total length of cable used can be reduced by 80%. www.eastmancuts.com JEC Composites Magazine / No39 March-April 2008

http://www.cotechinc.com http://www.sahmwinder.de http://www.despatch.com http://www.eastmancuts.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #39 - March/April 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #39 - March/April 2008