found this article. its from early 2012 but still quite...

found this article. its from early 2012 but still quite interesting particularly the reference to 7 minute curing times. thought I would share.

A successful partnership: Deakin University, Quickstep Technologies and VCAMM

http://amcrc.com.au/deakin-quickstep-vcamm

Deakin University hosts an AMCRC-backed project that could revive and transform Australia’s automotive industry, aerospace sector and boost advanced manufacturing in Australia. The university’s carbon fibre composites group is doing ground breaking research into carbon fibre and composites, regarded now as the material of the 21st century. In recent years, these materials have been increasingly adopted on everything from fighter jets to electric vehicles. This project could put Australia at the forefront of a growth industry.

Carbon-fibre composite body parts can be stronger than steel but weigh one fifth as much. The strength comes from the carbon in the fibre, powerful chemical bonds that form between carbon atoms, creating a high-performance fibre that can be made into parts such as aircraft wings and the chassis of Formula 1 racing cars.

Increasing carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft now drives the search for efficiency in aircraft and engine design. The aerospace industry has recently been using carbon fibre and composites to aid in this quest for improved efficiency. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, for example, is 50 per cent composite materials by weight. As a result it is 20 per cent more fuel efficient and produces fewer emissions. The new Airbus A350 XWB with its large carbon fibre wings and increased use of composites will be similar. Whilst carbon fibre is best known for being used extensively in prestige vehicles, particularly in Aston Martin, the Lamborghini and Corvettes, recently we have seen BMW adopt it for use in its high volume “City Car” Electric Vehicle. Formula 1 racing has taken to it as well. “We have gone from the time where there were a lot of accidents and badly injured drivers whereas now it’s a rare event because the safety of the vehicles has been increased enormously thanks to the extensive use of carbon fibre composite structures,” ’’ says Associate Professor Bronwyn Fox who runs the team at the university’s Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation Institute for Technology Research & Innovation.

“The ability to lightweight transport is essential. It means that you can improve fuel economy and reduce environmental emissions.”

Carbon fibre composites are also used for giant wind turbine blades. Glass fibre cannot be used for ultra-efficient blades over 43 metres because it tends to bend and buckle.
Significantly, the Automotive Australia 2020 Technology Roadmap released three years ago by the automotive industry identified light weight vehicles as an opportunity for the troubled automotive industry. “Lightweighting of passenger vehicles is an opportunity area that builds on Australian competitive strengths in two ways – by taking advantage of abundant mineral resources and by developing applications for those resources through Australia’s strengths in research and development,” the report said.

In keeping with that, the carbon fibre composites group has revitalised this research, which has stagnated since the 1980s, and taken it into new and unexplored areas, examining the properties of carbon fibre and discovering new ways to produce it. “There is an opportunity to understand it and improve the performance even more. According to many scientists, we are only at 10 per cent of the maximum properties of carbon fibre,” Associate Professor Fox says.

She believes it’s only a matter of time before it’s picked up by Australia’s automotive industry with overseas auto makers starting to use carbon fibre to produce lower cost vehicles. “I think now that composites are being used in such a widespread manner in high volume cars overseas, Australians are going to realise they’ll have to catch up. We are already working with CSIRO and Futuris to make light weight seats for electric vehicles” she says.

Her team has been working with Perth-based Quickstep Technologies for the last 10 years. Quickstep has developed the technology that produces composites faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world. The technology involves heating the materials using a liquid heat transfer fluid rather than the traditional heated gas. Quickstep has successfully bid to make components for the Joint Strike Fighter and is now heavily focused on the aerospace industry.

“Normally, it’s done in an autoclave which is like a giant pressure oven where you have to heat up an enormous volume of gas before you can even get the material up to temperature,” she says.

Whereas the autoclave produces a composite component in around four hours, Quickstep can do it as quickly as seven minutes and can therefore produce more composites for industry. “That means it’s really well suited for the automotive industry where you have high volume production,’’ Associate Professor Fox says.

Her group has been exploring ways to make the Quickstep technology even more robust. It has also been working with Quickstep to make aerospace laminates, evaluating them and sending them to a certified laboratory in the United Kingdom for evaluation.
But the biggest development comes next year when the Australian Carbon Fibre Research Facility (ACFRF) is opened. The Victorian Government funded carbon fibre research facility with a real, industrial carbon fibre production line. This research line will be the only one of its type in the world and is part of the long term partnership between Deakin University and VCAMM (The Victorian Centre for Advanced Materials Manufacturing).

“The ACFRF carbon fibre line positions Australia uniquely in the world” Says VCAMM CEO Brad Dunstan. “Such an open access facility is not available anywhere else. The opportunity for the composite industry to work with some of the world’s best researchers on a real carbon fibre line is very exciting for them.” “We hope that it leads to an expansion of composite manufacturing here in Australia” he added.

As part of that, Deakin University now has a Favimat (AI) Robot2 which runs tensile tests on carbon fibre. It is the only such machine in Australia and one of just 15 in the world used for testing carbon fibre.

“Performing tensile tests is incredibly labour intensive,’’ she says. “It’s fiddly, you need really good eyesight and it takes a while to load a single fibre, less than a tenth the size of a human hair into the machine. But this Favimat machine, rather than taking hours to do one sample, can do a sample in seconds. You can load 500 samples into the machine and a robot will automatically test them.”

The result: a significant reduction in operator unit costs and more cost efficient for industry.

In addition, the centre has a new Surface Energy Analyser which measures surface energy of the carbon fibre. The team can now evaluate how rough or how flexible fibre is, assessing air bubbles and impurities in the surface. “We have a major research theme of modifying the surface of carbon fibre so that we can make it bond more effectively with the polymer matrix that holds the composites together,’’ she says.

Potentially, this project could turn Australia into a global leader of carbon fibre research, and create many high tech jobs. It will also help transform manufacturing. The steel age might be coming to an end. Carbon fibre and composites is the way of the future.