JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #79 - March 2013 - 30

europe

rienced a fall of around 5%.
With a history stretching
back over 50 years, the
importance of the industrial
production of SMC and
BMC in the composites
sector should, however, not
be underestimated: after all,
production in this sector
accounts for nearly one
quarter of the total European GRP market. It is also
worth mentioning that these
products are often those
which are ready for series
or similar scale production.
Mass production of composite parts, the subject of so
much discussion, therefore
already exists.
As was the case last year,
demand for parts produced
using so-called «open processes» (hand lay-up, sprayup) has generally continued
to develop less well than
other markets. After stagna-

ting last year, these manual
processes suffered the greatest relative fall (9%) of any
sector in the GRP market in
2012.
This particularly affects
the many small companies that make individual
or small numbers of parts
with very little automation.
As a result, the expansion
of offshore wind farms,
for example, is currently
only making slow progress
primarily due to reasons
of economic feasibility,
financing and technological
problems.
The production of wind
turbine rotor blades, still
predominantly made from
GRP, continues to be outsourced to other countries.
The material properties demanded by ever larger rotor
blades also mean that GRP
is in some cases being subs-

tituted by CRP, for which
this is the primary application. The maritime sector,
where the use of open processes is widespread, is also
currently suffering steep
falls in demand in Southern
European countries.
Another factor at work
here is that the industrialisation and automation of
GRP production continues
to advance. This may also
lead to further reductions
in demand for open processes. The market for RTM
(resin transfer moulding)
and parts manufactured
using this process has fared
comparatively well this year
with zero growth. Substitution of open processes and
increased use in automobile
production promise a bright
future with strong growth
potential. Moreover, improvements and adaptations
of the processes subsumed
under this category are the
focus of a large number of
research projects to develop
improved, faster production
cycles, including in high
volume automobile production.
Continuous processes for
manufacturing GRP panels
are one of the few areas to
have grown a little over the
past year: a few major processing companies produce
large volumes very efficiently here with a relatively high
degree of automation.

Fig. 1: GRP production in Europe for different application =industries (2012)

30 jec composites magazine / No79 March 2013

The market for GRP pultrusion profiles, in contrast,
experienced a fall of 8%
with production volumes
continuing to be relatively
low. One reason for this is
the significant idle capacity

in the construction sector in
many European countries.
Construction and infrastructure are among the
main areas of application
for these products along
with isolated applications
in the maritime and sport &
leisure sectors.
There is also a clear decline
in the manufacture of pipe
and tank components using
the centrifugal casting and
filament winding processes.
Not even strong business in
the area of sewer renovation
using so-called pipe liners
can compensate for the lack
of major infrastructure projects especially in Southern
Europe. The production
of pipes is still lagging far
behind the trend in other
regions of the world (especially South-Eastern Europe
and Western Asia).
With growth of 6%, glass
mat reinforced thermoplastics (GMT) and long fibre
reinforced thermoplastics
(LFT) are the only processes with a non-thermoset
matrix considered in this
report to be clearly ahead of
the trend in 2012. Obviously, the sector has been able
to open up new areas of
application and substitute
alternative materials despite
falling demand in the automobile industry throughout
Europe.

Application industries
at a glance
Figure 1 provides an overview of the proportions of
GRP parts used by individual application industries.
These have remained relatively constant over time. The
transport and construction
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #79 - March 2013

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