JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #104 - April/May 2016 - 14

multimaterial

From Olympic catamarans to high-tech
composite components for industry
Marstrom Composite is a small and flexible
manufacturer of high-performance carbon composite articles. The company started as a marine
supplier and is now firmly established in other
segments such as aerospace, defence, industry,
automotive and medical equipment, where prepreg and autoclave technology is still the dominating manufacturing process.
Fig. 1: Structure of the group

By
Mikael ÖStenSSon
SaleS anD Marketing DireCtor
MarStroM CoMpoSite aB

arstrom Composite
was founded in 1983
by Per Wärn and Göran
Marström. Göran's success (third
place and bronze medal) in
Tornado class sailing at the 1980
Olympics in Moscow, led him,
together with his crew member
Jörgen Ragnarsson, to intensify
the hunt for top-class equipment.
Pretty soon, it became clear that
the market could not offer composite equipment good enough
and, to satisfy their high requirements, they had to develop their
own boat and spar. Their great
interest in sailing and their search
for the ultimate equipment were
the driving forces to start the new
enterprise.
The company rapidly started
producing a boat and mast using

autoclave-cured carbon fibre
prepreg in Åtvidaberg in the
south of Sweden. In 2003, its
operations moved to Västervik
on the east coast. The Marström
Sail Centre of Sweden HB, which
is the company's original name,
is considered by many to have
been the best manufacturer of
Tornado boats in the world. The
company delivered all the catamarans that participated in the
Olympic sailing competitions
from 1988 to 2008, winning
more than 82 medals.
The site has a 600m coast line
and its own marina, which is
particularly important when you
have to mast/dismast or service
sailing yachts.

The company today
In 2012, new shareholders joined
Marstrom Composite, bringing
novel opportunities for longterm and large-volume projects
where the close connection in
the value chain between carbon
fibre (DowAksa, Turkey), prepreg (CMP, Germany), structural design (Structeam, UK) and
final part production (Marstrom,

14 jec composites magazine / No104 April - May 2016

Sweden) is an asset (figure 1).
This cluster integrates carbon
composite product manufacturing from chemical raw materials
through prepreg manufacturing,
design and stress analysis to
finished products delivered to
OEMs or end customers.
Marstrom Composite has inhouse design and stress analysis
capabilities and a workshop
suitable for both prototype
production and large-volume
production. The time from
idea to first prototype is short
and cost-effective thanks to
the company's flexibility, while
long-term material cost and
availability are guaranteed by
the cluster it belongs to. In short,
Marstrom brings the flexibility
and cost-effective advantages of
a small-to-medium composite
part manufacturer with material
supply chain support, especially
for long-term projects.
During the past ten years,
production was extended from
100% marine applications
focusing on Tornado boats to
today's most advanced products
for the aerospace, industrial,

automotive, defence, marine and
medical technology sectors.

Well-equipped workshops
The company has two workshops. A 1,500m2 workshop for
composite lamination and curing
and a 1,200m2 one for trimming
and assembly. The latter also
includes a paint bay area. A fully
automated conveyor cutting
machine (5 x 1.8m) was recently
installed.
A number of technologies are
available to build carbon fibre

Fig. 2: Carbon composite cabinet
for the Coltrane Tenor Marten
loudspeaker

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #104 - April/May 2016