7/25/2016 10:51:00 PM
HEADLINES
PERSPECTIVE: Fasteners Face Lighter Future
From sports cars to skyscrapers and next-generation jets, engineers are looking for ways to reduce weight, and fasteners are a primary target.
The future of fastening is a frequent topic of trade shows and conferences.
A sampling of conferences on the subject include the 5th annual Global Automotive Lightweight Materials conference during August in Detroit. The Lightweight Materials conference has roles for Phillips Screw Co., Semblex, Stanley, EFC International and Rifast Systems.
JEC International Conference on Automotive Technology during October in Tennessee has a session on “Replacing traditional fasteners with adhesive bonding.”
It goes beyond automotive, as SAE Global has its Aerospace Manufacturing & Automated Fastener Conference in October in Germany
Lamborghini’s “Weighty Fasteners”
Lamborghini’s Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory is one of the only places outside of Boeing that can simulate lightning strikes, hail, birdstrikes, and engine failures, Automobile Magazine reports.
The lab is under the tutelage of Dr. Paolo Feraboli.
“I always wanted to build and design fighter jets,” he told Automobile. “I am not an engineer. I am a carbon-fiber designer.”
Under his direction, a five-person team tests, engineers, and creates “works of carbon-fiber art,” from the Lamborghini
Sesto Elemento to more than 1,000 parts for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.
Feraboli believes that carbon-fiber manufacturing could be sped up by eliminating the traditional molding, heating, and curing process, so he started mixing chopped carbon-fiber sheets with soft-at-room-temperature resin, placing the mixture into a steel mold and heating it under intense, 2,000-psi pressure, according to Automobile.
The process is called Forged Composite (FC) technology and has been patented by Lamborghini, having taken eight years to perfect.
“The materials can be repaired without reducing structural integrity.”
When asked about the nearly 2-ton weight of the car, Feraboli said: “Everyone thinks that it’s the engine that adds to the weight. Like in airplane manufacturing, everyone says, ‘OK, lets make the fuselage and the wings and tail out of light materials’—but then they attach all the pieces using steel connectors.”
If Feraboli has his way, the next Lamborghini will have a single-piece, completely carbon-fiber fuselage that does away with what he called “loathsome weighty fasteners.”
“Forged Composite is the next thing for car design,” he says, “and if we can make it lighter, stronger, modular, and integrated, the sky is really the limit.”
Will Skyscrapers Be Glued Together?
Glue is the future of architecture, according to architect Greg Lynn.
“Mechanical assembly is already waning in many industries,” Lynn told New Scientist. “An airplane now is glued together. A car now is glued together. Even a lot of appliances are being glued together.”
Such non-metallic composites as carbon fibre, fiberglass panels and other structural plastics are “lightweight, often much cheaper than traditional industrial materials and offer physically stronger systems for designers to work with,” writes reporter Geoff Manaugh of New Scientist.
Composite materials are already used to manufacture high-performance yachts, wind turbine blades, large passenger aircraft such as Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and even commercial spacecraft.
“These are fundamentally different material systems,” architect Bill Kreysler told New Scientist.
Kreysler said the connective strength of architectural adhesives can surpass that of mechanical connections such as bolts and screws.
But composites are not well understood in the building industry, writes Manaugh.
“Even when assembling a structure using carbon fibre panels, contractors will often still use screws, rivets or bolts. This is both redundant and expensive,” Manaugh writes. “Glue would be much stronger than a bolt, especially when standing up to sheer forces.”
Architect Lynn thinks it is just a matter of time before skyscrapers are held together entirely by adhesives.
“The use of composites and adhesives could revolutionize engineering in every building type,” Lynn stated. “It could change the way we design around natural disasters. By drastically cutting the weight of a building, you could stop it swaying so much during an earthquake.”
Lighter buildings are also cheaper, Lynn told New Scientist.
“If you can take 30% of the weight out of the upper section of a building by using lightweight composite materials, you could end up saving between 70 and 80% of the material in the entire structure,” he said. Web: NewScientist.com
Rise of the Super Glues
Cars increasingly are held together by glue — as are airplanes, phones and myriad other items, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The process of substituting adhesives for welds, rivets, screws and bolts has been so gradual over recent decades that few people have noticed,” the Journal reports.
But that process is quickening as car manufacturers “struggle to make vehicles lighter to meet tougher fuel-economy requirements.”
“Bonding [with adhesives] is the new welding,” Dow automotive unit president Steve Henderson told the Journal.
Basic metallurgy and chemistry favor bonding. But adhesive makers trying to capitalize on the $2 billion bonding market face challenges, including “finding ways for adhesives to withstand higher temperatures” and overcoming design engineers’ preference for reliable metal fasteners.
The biggest obstacle adhesives makers face is psychological, according to the Journal.
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