JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017 - 15

JEC Asia awards

RAILWAY

Railway sleepers using ultra-high-performance cementitious composites
Ultra-high-performance cementitious composites (UHPC) are among the most advanced cement-based composites and
possess superior mechanical properties, including a compressive strength greater than
150 MPa, high ductility, impact resistance
and durability. In order to achieve such impressive mechanical properties, most UHPC
mixtures intentionally exclude coarse aggregates, which leads to high strength by minimizing the interfacial transition zone. The
UHPC developed by the Korea Railroad
Research Institute (KRRI) adopted an innovative design concept that incorporates
proper coarser fine aggregates without sacrifice of mechanical properties, an innova-

tion that has never been achieved before for
UHPC. This way, the KRRI UHPC can lower material cost by up to 22% compared to
standard UHPC. The world's first railway
sleepers using UHPC were recently developed and designed to fully utilize the superior mechanical benefits of composites. The
new design minimizes steel reinforcements
in railway sleepers since all the reinforcing
steel bars can be removed and the diameter
of prestressed bars can be reduced from 11.0
mm to 9.2 mm, reducing steel usage by more
than 25% compared to conventional concrete sleepers. Furthermore, the high durability, ductility and impact resistance of the
new cement-based composites makes it pos-

Single-wall nanotube-based industrial predispersed concentrate
OCSiAl's Tuball nanotubes are the first single-wall carbon nanotubes available for commercial applications in a wide range of industries. The breakthrough, yet low-cost,
mass-production technology invented by
OCSiAl for Tuball nanotubes has unlimited
scaling potential and makes the widespread
use of single-wall carbon nanotubes (CNT)
economically viable. The mass-production
process is able to preserve the CNTs' high
quality (the iron content is less than 1%).
The exceptional physical properties, nanometre dimensions and chemical universality
of Tuball nanotubes result in a great leap forward in improving the key properties of composite materials, such as mechanical strength
and electrical conductivity. Unlike conventional additives such as multi-wall carbon

Chomarat provided its C-PLY™ Non-Crimp
Fabric (NCF) technology to Neilpryde and
Cobra to help them manufacture an innovative windsurf board. The visual stitching of
the fabric combines visual appeal and mechanical performance. C-PLY™ is the fruit of
collaborative work between Chomarat and
Stanford University's Dr. Steven Tsai, who
developed the concept of bi-angle thin-ply
NCF. Originally dedicated to the design of
aeronautical parts, the concept is now successfully applied to the sports and leisure sector. C-Ply™ is an NCF multiaxial carbon reinforcement comprised of stitched plies that

sible to extend their lifespan five times compared to conventional concrete sleepers.
www.krri.re.kr

RAW MATERIAL

nanotubes, carbon fibres and most types of
carbon black, Tuball provides significant improvements in material properties upon the
addition of just 0.01-0.1% by weight. To facilitate the effective incorporation of its CNT
into materials, OCSiAl developed Tuball
Matrix, a line of easy-to-use predispersed
concentrates that are compatible with various
industry-standard formulations. To validate
its R&D results, the company relies on the
expertise of more than 20 independent global scientific centres, including Fraunhofer,
Leibniz, DIK and TUHH in Germany,
SAIT in Korea, Moscow State University in
Russia, Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Rice
University in the USA. OCSiAl partners
with high-tech manufacturers and chemical companies throughout the world, includ-

Thin-ply carbon NCF with visual stitching applied to
an innovative windsurf board

Winner: Korea Railroad Research Institute
(South Korea)

Winner: OCSiAl (Luxemburg)

ing Lanxess in Europe, Grace Continental in
Korea, Union Chemical and Haiyi in China
and Kusumoto in Japan. To improve the performance of composite materials, OCSiAl
also partners with Büfa Composite Systems,
who is developing unique high-performance
resin formulations with Tuball nanotubes.
www.ocsial.com

SPORT & LEISURE

allow precise tailoring of the fibre angles
in the load directions. In this construction
(C-PLY SP), tows are spread to create thin
plies which are then stitched with precise angles of ±45°. The C-PLY™ NCF structure respects the fibre alignment and is optimized in
terms of fibre angles and ply weights thanks
to unique spreading technology. The result
is a leading-edge carbon NCF reinforcement
allowing structural design benefits, premium
surface quality and overall part cost savings.
C-PLY™ SP BX 150 X1 is an innovative carbon NCF with a unique stitching yarn that
is designed to be processed easily on pro-

Winner: Chomarat (France)
Partners: Cobra (Thailand) and Neilpryde
(Spain)
duction lines,
to remain visible after resin
impregnation,
to capture resin colour pigments and to
contribute to
additional reinforcement in
the Z axis.

N°117 November - December 2017

www.chomarat.com

/ jec composites magazine

http://www.krri.re.kr http://www.ocsial.com http://www.chomarat.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017