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The Bristol Composites Institute (BCI) and National Composites Centre (NCC) recently hosted their joint annual conference at Wills Hall Conference Centre in Bristol. If you missed out this year, then a recording of the BCI & NCC introductions, Technical Presentations and the Keynote Lecture are available to view on the BCI Youtube Channel. Links to the individual presentations are also listed at the end of this article.
The focus of the event was on future applications of composite materials, through industry focussed innovation. We were at capacity with nearly 200 attendees, for an array of technical presentations and thought-provoking discussions. There were presentations from BCI and NCC on Sustainable and Natural Materials, CMC’s for High Temperature Applications and Future Structures.
This was followed by an insightful keynote lecture from Alison Green at Vertical Aerospace titled “How composites will help disrupt the future of air travel”.
We finished the day with a panel session which focused on 4 key areas:
- Challenges for new sustainable materials
- How to create a level playing field for LCA of materials?
- UK competitiveness in new materials
- Reduction of product development costs
The panel session was chaired by Mike Hinton of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, with an expert panel sharing their knowledge; Faye Smith (Avalon Consultancy Services), Jon Meegan (Solvay), Fabrizio Scarpa (BCI), Marcus Walls-Bruck (NCC), Lourens Blok (Lineat), Jonathan Fuller (NCC) and Alison Green (Vertical Aerospace).
The Technical Presentations are available to view here:
Presentation A (PDF, 1,782kB) Industrial Processing of Biocomposites, Opportunities and Challenges by Susie Morton and Hannah Swinbourne, Research Engineers, National Composites Centre
Presentation B (PDF, 2,869kB) Innovative Sustainability in Composite Materials for Environmental Impact Reduction by Iheoma Nwuzor, Research Associate, Bristol Composites Institute
Presentation C (PDF, 1,856kB) p-CEAMS C. The next generation of high performance, quality assured recycled carbon fibre products by Kyle Pender, Advanced Research Engineer, National Composites Centre
Presentation D (PDF, 3,408kB) CMCs for Nuclear Fusion Energy Applications by Virtudes Rubio, Principal Research Engineer, National Composites Centre
Presentation E (PDF, 3,444kB) Damage Models for SiC / SiC CMCs by Luiz Kawashita, Senior Lecturer, Bristol Composites Institute
Presentation F (PDF, 1,291kB) Towards highly-tailorable, structural efficient and resilient composite designs by Professor Michael Wisnom, Bristol Composites Institute
Presentation G (PDF, 3,136kB) Tow-steered composites for robust space structures by Rainer Groh, Senior Lecturer, Bristol Composites Institute
Presentation H (PDF, 3,809kB) New sustainable materials and manufacturing processes reduce steering defects during automated layup by Phil Druiff, Advanced Research Engineer, National Composites Institute
BCI and NCC Overview Presentations: