Aerospace

Rising fuel costs, environmental regulations and an increase in airline traffic have helped drive the increasing use of composite materials in the aerospace industry. Composites are used in military, business and commercial aircraft of all sizes, including spacecraft.

Apollo IE Hyper-Car Uses Carbon Fiber for Strength and Aerodynamics

The IE in Apollo IE stands for Intensa Emozione, meaning intense emotion, and the hyper-car was designed with high-functionality and radical style in mind. Apollo IE was developed in partnership with HWA AG,...

Composite Aeroshell Will Protect NASA’s 2020 Rover Throughout Journey to Mars

Lockheed Martin developed a heat shield using a tiled Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) thermal protection system to protect the Mars 2020 rover from the intense heat during entry, descent, and...

FSU Team Develops Carbon Nanotube Heat Shield for Superfast Aircraft

A team of Florida A&M University - Florida State University (FSU) College of Engineering researchers from FSU’s High-Performance Materials Institute (HPMI) is developing a design for a heat shield made...

Enabling Exploration

With some assistance from composite materials, today’s adventurers are traveling even farther into the unknown. Explorers in earlier centuries traveled the world in modes of transportation made of wood...

Carbon Fiber Can Be Used to Make Reentry of Space Debris Safer

In developing technologies and techniques to ensure low-orbiting satellites are designed according to the concept of ‘D4D’ – design for demise, The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Clean Space initiative...

Making Simulation Accessible to the Masses

Composites simulation tools aren’t just for mega corporations. Small and mid-sized companies can reap their benefits, too. In 2015, Solvay Composite Materials began using simulation tools from...