Cheryl Richards of PPG Industries says The composites industry is behind the curve in developing the data needed to demonstrate product benefits.

The composites industry is behind the curve in developing the data needed to demonstrate product benefits to the emerging environmentally conscious market said Cheryl Richards, business development manager of PPG Industries, Inc. in her convention session titled It Takes Big Shoes to Make a Small Footprint.

She said there is a new and growing market of people who want green products but consumers must be convinced with evidence that environmental costs do not outweigh the benefits.  Regulators and lawmakers must be convinced too and that will take data.

To present the case that composite products have a net positive impact on the environment, the entire life cycle of many products must be examined from resource extraction through manufacturing and use and even to demolition and recycling. “We have to break down each component and put numbers on those,” she said. The competition such as the wood, steel and concrete industries has already done this work and the composites industry needs to catch up to stay in the game. “Right now, we are poorly represented [in the green markets],” she said.

She called on business owners and operators to read the white paper developed by the Green Composites Committee to learn how they can get involved in the research program.  Outside consultants will be hired to gather and examine the data to give scientific legitimacy to the study.

An industry wide effort will be needed to stay in the game and prove that composites can “meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.”

In China especially, the impact of the recession has been muted and a latent demand for housing and infrastructure has created double-digit growth in construction and an increased demand for all types of consumer goods.  While a lack of awareness of the availability and advantages of composite products is a challenge in that market, massive increases in demand will force more acceptance, Timmins said.  Specific products that are seeing increased demand include cooling towers, bathtubs, pools, FRP panels, bridge decks, grating, doors, windows, grating and rebar.

Other potential markets include Brazil, Russia and India that all have a built-up need for housing and energy efficient materials.   A rise in urbanization and more government housing create more demand in these areas.  Sadly, natural disasters such as floods and earthquake have created a need for prefabricated construction in undeveloped areas, but more happily, international showcase events such as the Olympics and expos create an urgent need for construction and cost efficiency.

Forecasters see a future of robust growth in international markets of 7 percent by 2015, Timmins said, while domestic recovery in North America will be gradual.  Demand for construction will remain low while raw material prices will increase but there will be less ability to pass those costs on to the financially-pinched consumer.

The manufacturing expert shared insight he has learned in the seven years since Bradley Corp. took a systematic approach to reducing mold problems. “For a while, I was the entire mold program,” he quipped. “But now, everyone at the company knows about the issue—we’re all on board because we’ve seen the benefits.”

He used charts to showcase some of those benefits. For example, Bradley Corp.’s unscheduled repairs dropped from about 100 hours in 2006 to 56 hours in 2007 to just 20 hours in 2008. “We’re not putting out nearly as many fires—the unexpected problems we deal with aren’t as big, and not as often,” he said. “Companies that begin mold maintenance programs can get this big bucketful of time back, and spend it on other parts of their businesses. But more often than not, we’re our own roadblocks—we come up with excuses not to do it, or we start a simple program and don’t see it through.”

Piekarski likened mold maintenance to owning a car. The more you drive a car, the more you get a feel for how to handle it. “Same goes with mold,” he said. Also, the more a company ramps up production, the more preventative maintenance it requires, just as more oil is needed for a car that travels frequently.

Piekarski also shared a standard process to preventative maintenance: pulling the mold from production, cleaning the exterior of the mold, stripping the interior of the mold surface, repairing as needed, reapplying the release and returning the mold to service. He then spoke about the importance of using standardized forms to gather metrics, such as total time spent on mold problems and the ratio of time spent on mold issues to time spent on total preventative maintenance.

“Still, much success of mold maintenance lies on the shop floor and the way employees are trained,” Piekarski says. “Simply put, if they’re in a hurry, they make mistakes. I can’t stress enough the importance of making sure workers are properly trained and that you’re keeping tabs on what they’re doing. A little time upfront can yield major results downstream.”

Bob Baker, technical service director at Huber Engineered Materials, and Gary Rex, senior research scientist at J.M. Huber Corp., led a session at COMPOSITES 2010 about the vital role fillers play in the industry.

They discussed common and uncommon fillers that are used in developing the composites matrix. Filler chemistry, particle shape and size, and even location of where fillers are mined contribute to final part quality, they explained.

Baker talked extensively about the prevalence of calcium carbonate in everyday life, underscoring the point that fillers are integral ingredients in applications ranging from homes to shoes, but often go underappreciated—even by composites professionals.

To help educate the audience, he presented a quick-hitting science class of sorts, explaining where fillers such as calcium carbonate, talc and others come from, what their physical properties are (hardness, opacity, etc.) how they react differently with other materials and where they’re commonly used.

Rex spoke about the utility and value of ATH, a critical material in the production of aluminum metal, a raw material for production of alumina chemicals and a flame retardant for polymers.

Bob Lacovara, president of consultancy Convergent Composites, led a presentation about ways composites firms can reduce emissions and thereby improve the quality and safety of their facilities. He presented an overview of technology available to make that happen, and how it can be applied to different processes. “Environmentally friendly materials translate to low styrene materials, styrene alternatives and additives such as styrene suppressants,” he said.

The emissions from fiber reinforced plastics processors can be major sources of volatile emissions, including styrene, the volatile component of polyester resin and gelcoat; and acetone, a solvent used to clean tools and other surfaces contaminated with resin.

Some discussion during the presentation was about the potential for converting open molding into close molding, which sometimes is a possibility and other times isn’t cost effective because of production cost and volume, Lacovara said.

The benefits of reducing volatile emission are numerous:

• Fewer emissions implies better raw materials use, improving the bottom line
• Less concern about Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations related to worker exposure to chemicals, especially styrene
• Less concern about regulation of air pollutants as a result of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA), and the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards
• Reduced disposal cost of spent solvents as hazardous waste
• Reduced risk of fires caused by high concentrations of chemicals in the workplace

Lacovara said no single option is likely to replace the plant-wide use of solvent or completely eliminate the source of volatile emissions, so it’s best for composites companies to examine alternatives that combine several options.

When considering a substitute, firms should keep in mind the following:

• Do the new materials pose a worker health or safety risk?
• How much employee training will be required for successfully implementing a substitute?
• What experience have others in the industry had with the alternative technology?
• What regulations need to be considered?
• What will the effect be on product quality and production levels?
• Will a new waste stream be created? If so, how will it be handled?

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) developed the BioPreferred program to establish new markets for bio-based products. Ron Buckhalt, program manager for BioPreferred, says that even as the industry is turning to greener ingredients, oil dependence is still a detriment. “Soybeans are being used more, but they’re a food, and when the oil prices go up, so do food prices,” he said.

One of the major initiatives Buckhalt discussed was the voluntary labeling program. The effort would also culminate in a system where green-eligible products would be stamped with an approved USDA label, much like the Energy Star system for electronics. What determines eligibility isn’t precisely known at this point, but Buckhalt said that whatever the level is should be an industry standard. “Companies don’t have the capability to go too high, but we could be looking at 30 percent,” he says.

The program is currently set up into five categories: acoustical panels, interior panels, plastic lumber panels, structural interior panels, and structural wall panels. But this is where the USDA is reaching out directly to the composites industry to help structure this area in such a way that benefits composites. “We need input from you as to how to categorize these,” Buckhalt said.

The program currently comprises 4,500 products from 1,000 companies in markets such as construction, food service, transportation, and facility operations/maintenance. Manufacturers currently involved include Agriboard, which manufactures structural panels from straw, and BioFoam Tech, which produces green surfboards.

Habib Dahger from the University of Maine spoke to a swelling audience on the last day of COMPOSITES 2010 on the window of opportunity available to composites manufacturers within the wind energy market.

Within the U.S. the largest concentration of people is within the northeast corridor, roughly the size of a misshapen Texas. Approximately 55 million people live, work and burn through high energy bills, all while untapped potential lies nearby.

However, the U.S. now has a goal: generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity from wind energy by the year 2030. This includes not only land turbines but offshore ones as well. Currently the U.S. has several proposed offshore projects, mostly within the Northeast, but zero installed. Whereas the U.K. alone is pushing forward, contractors and all, on a $12 billion offshore project. Dahger estimates that within the U.S., $200 billion will be spent on offshore wind with blades alone accounting for 10 percent of the cost—which is a huge opportunity for the composites industry. “Offshore wind turbines offer a great deal of opportunity because they require different things compared to land turbines,” he says. But Dagher also pointed out some obstacles that impede progress. “Offshore turbines need to be longer and more durable within salt water to limit maintenance costs. After all, who wants to go 15 miles offshore and fix a broken turbine that’s 300 feet in the air?”

Dahger emphasized that the offshore market is slowly evolving. It’s new and has room for vast improvements within product use, installation capabilities and maintenance. “That gives composite manufacturers the opportunity to develop new resins and coating systems as well as develop solutions on how to anchor turbines that will be installed in transitional and deeper waters (over 200 feet),” he says. “Do you ask a boat builder to go 15 miles offshore and build a boat? No! But right now, that’s what offshore turbine installers have to do.” If the composites industry can find a more durable solution and an easier way to install these turbines, it’s not just a window of growth opportunity for the market: it’s a wide open door.

The presentation began with the definition of color itself: a combination of light, object, and observer. To demonstrate this (particularly the latter characteristic), Howard pointed two lasers at the wall, one red and one blue. The blue one appeared to be further away, and Howard used this example to show how the mind plays a role in color. “Choosing the right color is part of the design of any composite part,” he said.

But light also plays a big part in the process. “The light source is the number one source of color variance,” says Howard. For example, daylight results in even levels of color, tungsten lamps feature decreased levels of blue, and fluorescent bulbs result in random spikes across the spectrum. How composites interact with the light depends on the geometric attributes of the product itself, which include surface smoothness. Because of this, Howard notes that composite products will not be able to look like another material. “Only metals look like metals,” he says.

Color matching is another important factor. “There are only a finite amount of available pigments, so they’re blended to reach the desired color and keep it under control,” says Howard. He went on to discuss some specific pigments and how they act as chemicals in color composition. Phthalocyanines and azos tend to accelerate the rate of cure in composites. Carbon blacks feature 100s of grades, and thus can accelerate or inhibit the cure depending on the grade. Ultramarines feature metal complexes, whose ions may react with composite components. Inorganic whites such as titanium dioxide and zinc sulfide are commonly used in composites, but not in outdoor applications because their intensity fades under those conditions.

Howard also detailed some appearance issues that pop up. A lack of pigment opacity can be resolved by using higher pigment dispersion concentrations. UV stability can be addressed by optimizing the full composite system to meet stability requirements, and also using additives to improve outdoor weathering performance. Glass fibers near the molded surface can result in color variation and degradation, and can be compensated for by using additional pigment dispersion. Regions of dry glass impact the structural properties of the composite. “Whatever appearance issue you have, realize it’s application-specific and must be addressed independently,” says Howard.

The story underscored the point of Rudersdorf’s presentation: Be prepared for OSHA visits before representatives arrive at your facility.

Rudersdorf, who serves Composites One as director of health, safety and environment, explained to attendees that OSHA penalties are based on four factors: gravity of the violation, size of the business, good faith of the employer and the employer’s history of previous violations. “The best move is to have documented organized training programs,” he said. “If your program has a ‘wow’ factor and your housekeeping methods look impressive, it’s much more effective.” Rudersdorf also recommended that attendees develop a hazard communication program that workers understand.

He was part of an expert panel that spoke about new developments in environmental and worker safety regulation and enforcement. The gist: Composites firms aren’t just looking to diversity their operations and grow revenue with new products; they seek to avoid trouble from regulators.

Marcus Bingham, vice president of Clarion Bathware, spoke about ways to incorporate safety incentives to help make safety an ongoing thought among workers. “The goal here is awareness—that’s the secret to reducing accidents.” He gave attendees tips and ideas on crafting memorable, fun employee-recognition programs.

Other panelists included Bill Holtzclaw, president of Holtec LLC; Jeff Austad, vice president of specialty unit sales and distribution for Magnum Venus Plastech; Dennis Fink, technical service manager for Syrgis Performance Initiators Inc.; Jack Benton, CEO of Benton & Associates; and Lowell Miles, founder and owner of Miles Fiberglass & Composites Inc.

The session began with a spirited discussion of environmental trends. Though the awareness is only now increasing, Ken Lipovsky, cast polymer application specialist for Reichhold, noted the industry has used a similar mindset in past production. “For years, we’ve used recycled cola bottles and x-ray films for our resins, and they’ve been used in a variety of applications,” he said.

The panel discussed the differences in implementing the greener resins into manufacturing. “Larger molecules are used in the green resins, so they’re more resilient,” said Lipovsky. Tom Pelt, director of technical projects for Bradley Corporation, said color concerns must be addressed. “If you’re not careful, exotherming can cause stress cracking, and that can affect the color consistency,” he said.

When asked how the “green” nature of a product is determined, HK Research Corporation’s President Richard Higgins said there must be a component that’s a renewable resource. “Things such as soybean oil and fatty acids would be in there. The key is renewal sources,” he said. Additionally, it was clarified that a green resin isn’t LEED requirement; that’s determined by the end product itself.

More general manufacturing-related issues were also brought up. The panel discussed scrap elimination and why it occurs. Factors included excessive use of outdated or improper resins. “Most resins have a 90-day shelf life, and it’s possible that the drum of resin may have neared that lifespan when you receive it,” said Lipovsky. Pelt added that there may be problems with an equipment operator. “It may be painstaking to document those procedures, but it’s worth it to fix the problem. Plus, it becomes a training tool for new employees,” he said.

Finally, the discussion turned to mold issues related to curing. Jack Simmons, vice president of sales with ACS International, said that improper usage of resin (whether incorporating too much or letting it migrate too long) was a primary cause of curing problems. Higgins added that the combination of heavy gel coats and slow resins (leading to a short period when the gel is stronger than the matrix) was also a factor.