COMPOSITES EUROPE:
Hybrid Lightweight Construction on the Up and Up
The weight reduction trend has driven the development of fibre-reinforced composites in automotive engineering, aerospace and construction. Once again this year, the quantity of glass-fibre reinforced plasticsproduced in Europe will increase by 2.5 per cent, according to the industry association AVK.
The industry is set to continue on this growth trajectory in coming years, including in the transport and construction sectors, while hoping for additional gains from the use of composites in modern materials systems that go beyond individual groups of materials. "The trend towards the creation and development of multi-material systems and the use of hybrid components will remain one of the central challenges. Joining and combining different materials is a task not just the composites industry should face up to but also players in other materials segments", says Dr. Elmar Witten, the managing director of the AVK.
With the debut of the Lightweight Technologies Forums and the "Lightweight Construction Strategy Day", COMPOSITES EUROPE 2016 reflected and showcased this trend: hybrid lightweight construction continues to gain in significance. As a result, composites produced with fibre-composite and metal technologies where the focus of the educational programme staged jointly by COMPOSITES EUROPE and the concurrent ALUMINIUM trade fair in Düsseldorf from 29 November to 1 December 2016. "Lightweight construction is a key technology of the future that's making a critical contribution to the modernisation of industry. Electro-mobility, for example, is inconceivable without lightweight engineering. Economy and ecology will become linked even more tightly. And the 'Lightweight Construction Strategy Day' at ALUMINIUM and COMPOSITES EUROPE is making an important contribution in that regard", said Iris Gleicke, Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, at the outset of the trade fair.
Images: R. Eberhard, messekompakt.de, EBERHARD print & medien agentur gmbh
Source: Reed Exhibitions