Show weighs up future perspectives

According to Composites Europe 2017 organisers, Reed Exhibitions, the aerospace industry is injecting some momentum into the composites sector’s future perspectives. Aerospace Manufacturing reports.

Aviation will offer extraordinarily good growth prospects for fibre composites in future – for both glass fibre and carbon fibre-reinforced plastics. In their composites market survey 2016, the authors of the trade association, Composites Germany forecast strong annual growth for the coming years. Even today this sector of industry already accounts for around one third (35,200) of global demand. According to the forecast, this demand is to rise to over 65,900 tons by 2022.

Composites Europe held from 19-21 September in Stuttgart will demonstrate what the composites industry can already do for aviation today. 400 exhibitors will present the state-of-the-art and future market potentials – in the exhibition area, at numerous event areas, in lecture forums, on themed tours and at workshops.

For designers and engineers from the aviation industry, a Guided Tour of selected exhibitors provides an initial overview. Gunnar, Grasse Zur Ingenieurgesellschaft and Evonik will each be part of this tour.

In terms of development and design, lightweight construction is a key technology for the future of the aerospace, as well as the automotive and architecture segments. The event’s Lightweight Technologies Forum will for the second time, cover issues and questions of user industries concerning modern multi-material systems. Due to its hugely successful premiere in 2016, the second edition of the forum in Stuttgart will be expanded.

Reducing energy and material consumption is essential for long-term economic success in virtually all industrial sectors. Lightweight construction offers a sustainable solution for that, along with great growth potential. The lightweight construction forum tackles the issue from this perspective. Up to 20 exhibitors, more than 30 presentations and several panel discussions make up the content of the Lightweight Technologies Forum 2017, with the main focus being on multi-material lightweight construction.

Combining an exhibition and a presentation forum, the event will serve as the cross-material interface between metal and fibre-reinforced composite technologies in structural components. In several application-focused modules, experts will present their real-world experiences with issues revolving around material composites in various sectors. Also on the agenda will be cross-industry thematic blocks emphasising manufacturing and production technologies, such as the joining and combining of different materials.

Reed Exhibitions says it has managed to bring on board the leading lightweight construction associations, institutes and clusters to serve as content partners for the event. They include the VDMA Working Group Hybrid Lightweight Technologies, CFK-Valley Stade, the AVK, the Aachen Centre for Integrative Lightweight Production (AZL), the Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV) at the RWTH Aachen, the network kunststoffland NRW, the cluster NanoMikroWerkstoffePhotonik NRW and the Open Hybrid LabFactory from Wolfsburg. With the addition of AMC GmbH in 2017, the group gained an important and competent new market partner. Serving as the ambassador for the lightweight construction theme, AMC is tasked with helping to shape and actively drive the strategic and conceptual development of the Lightweight Technologies Forum.

Kicking off Composites Europe 2017 on 18 and 19 September 2017 will be the ‘3rd International Composites Congress (ICC)’ hosted by the trade association Composites Germany in Stuttgart. Current trends, new applications and technologies, and a comprehensive overview of market developments in Europe and worldwide will be the centre of attention at the 3rd ICC. This year’s partner country, South Korea, will be represented with several exclusive speakers.

Readers of Aerospace Manufacturing will have free admission to the event – all they have to do is fill out the registration link and then key in the voucher code.

Register for free here: www.composites-europe.com/voucher. Your voucher code: ucxv-26ud-4zxb-qygf

www.composites-europe.com