APPLICATIONS

Solar boat launched

NEXT YEAR, the Tranor
PlanetSolar composite catamaran will set out to become
the rst solar-powered boat
to sail around the world.
The 30 m long, 5 m wide
catamarans deck is covered
with photovoltaic panels with
a surface area of over 530 m2.
The solar power will be stored
in a lithium ion battery, which
will power an electric motor.
The boat was constructed by
Knierim Yacht Club, in Kiel,
Germany, in 14 months. It is an
extremely lightweight carbon/
epoxy composite sandwich
design. It required approximately 20.6 tons of carbon

bre, 23 tons of epoxy resin

and 11.5 tons of AIREX C70
structural foam core material
in various densities. One of the
challenges for this sandwich
construction was to take into
account the weight of the
solar panels, battery and motor,
while designing the boat as
light and as robust as possible.
In 2011, PlanetSolar will
set out to circumnavigate
the world powered only
by the sun. It will travel at
average speeds of 7.5 knots
and the 50 000 km journey
will take about 160 days.
Planet Solar;
www.planetsolar.org

PlanetSolar, the worlds biggest solar-powered boat, was launched at the end of
March. The project aims to promote the use of renewable technologies as the main
energy source of the future.

AAR wins CSeries contract

AAR CORP has been selected
by Bombardier Aerospace,
Belfast, to design and manufacture composite ap track
fairings for the wings of Bombardiers new CSeries aircraft.
The contract could be worth
more than US$90 million over
the life of the programme.
The work will be performed
by AAR Composites, which
develops and fabricates advanced
composite structures for aviation
and aerospace applications.
Located in Clearwater, Florida,
USA, AAR Composites recently
expanded its manufacturing
capabilities with the opening of
a west coast facility in Sacramento, California. The expansion

REINFORCEDplastics

provides additional capacity for

autoclave, oven, resin transfer
moulding (RTM) and vacuum
assisted resin transfer moulding
(VARTM) composites processes.
Bombardier Aerospace, Belfast,
is responsible for the development, design and manufacture
of the composite wings for the
CSeries aircraft family, which is
designed for the 100- to 149-seat
market. It has already assembled
a pre-production demonstrator
wing using its resin transfer
infusion process (see page 8).
AAR;
www.aarcorp.com
Bombardier;
www.bombardier.com

MAY/JUNE 2010

Composites strengthen
Melbourne bridge

The West Gate bridge.

CARBON COMPOSITES are

being used to strengthen
the West Gate Bridge in
Melbourne, Australia.
The West Gate Bridge crosses
the Yarra River and is part
of a freeway that traverses
the city of Melbourne. It is a
2.5 km long suspension bridge
(approximately 6 km long
including approach roads), with
a 336 m main river span, 58 m
high above the water, with
its two towers culminating at
102 m above river level. The
current trac volume across
the bridge of 160 000 vehicles
per day includes 20 000 trucks.
The renovation of the bridge
includes expanding the bridge
from four to ve lanes and
installing a public safety barrier.
The strengthening work
started in October 2009 on
the east side of the bridge,
using MBrace carbon bre
sheets and fabrics supplied by

EPSILON Composite, France, and

epoxy resins supplied by BASF,
Australia. The MBrace plates (up
to 4 mm thick) have a peel ply
on both sides.
The original design required
more than 100 km of high
strength standard carbon bre
plates, more than 10 000 m of
carbon bre fabric, including
more than 65 tons of adhesive and more than 20 tons
of resin. According to EPSILON
Composite, this makes it by far
the largest carbon composite
strengthening project ever,
by a factor of at least three
compared to previous jobs.
The project is being funded
by the Victorian State Government and the Australian Federal
Government to the value of
$240 million.
EPSILON Composite;
www.epsilon-composite.com
BASF; www.basf.com

The strengthening work.

www.reinforcedplastics.com