01 December, 2021
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
5:30 - 6:15 p.m. (AST)
Thermoplastic composite solutions for mass markets: Opportunities and challenges
By Dr. Nikhil Verghese
Corporate Fellow, SABIC
Thermoplastic composites are increasingly being considered for large volume applications that involve replacing incumbent materials such as metals. The Automotive, Oil & Gas and Consumer Electronics spaces in particular, offer an interesting opportunity to capitalize on the performance of fiber-reinforced composites because of the general need to go to enhanced lifetime, durable and thinner structures while paying attention to light weighting [1]. These applications tend to lean towards large part build volumes, typically in the range of a 100k to 1 Million parts per year. All of this creates the perfect opportunity to clever design that exploit the power of composites, best in class material forms and explore automation driven production approaches. The development challenges however for this automation driven production approach were identified to be: high speed production, with minimal scrap and minimal human intervention resulting in low conversion costs, while still maintaining a high degree of flexibility [2].
In this presentation, we will outline what it will take to build confidence in thermoplastic matrix composites in replacing incumbent material systems. It will also speak to gaps that still exist in terms of driving adoption.