In the marine industry, composite materials grew 3.4 percent in 2013 due to the improving economy, increased consumer spending and the rise in employment rates. In the United States, boat production grew more than 5 percent. Such growth benefits the composites industry since approximately 70 percent of boats are made with composite materials.
The U.S. consumer goods market grew 3 percent in 2013. Composites are used in seven out of 10 products in the most popular outdoor sports and recreational activities. For example, carbon fiber is the predominant material in golf shafts, fishing rods and tennis rackets.
Innovation Potential in Composites
Innovation Potential in Composites
There will be significant innovations in the composites market in the next 50 years. In aerospace, automotive, construction, pipe and tank, consumer goods and other industries, composites are underrepresented. Some of the future innovation areas for composites are:
- Lightweighting of automotive, aerospace and industrial parts
- Cost reduction in various composite parts
- Smart structures for quality control and damage monitoring
- Reduction in number of part counts in many applications
- Advanced composite parts for mass produced cars
- Faster and predictable infusion
- Reduction in the price of composite materials, including carbon, aramid and resins
- Environmentally-friendly resin and fiber systems
- Enhanced mechanical, chemical and conductive properties of fiber and resin systems
Lightweighting and cost reduction are two mega trends across industries. There’s been a shift to carbon fiber driven by its low density, high strength and stiffness compared to traditional materials. The key factor limiting the penetration of carbon fiber is its high cost, which will gradually decrease.
Figure 3 compares relative part weight and part cost of various competing materials, such as steel, high-strength steel, aluminum, carbon composites, etc. Carbon composites have the highest weight reduction potential (up to 60 percent lighter than steel), but is by far the most expensive alternative (~500 percent costlier than steel).
Figure 3: Relative Part Weight and Part Cost (Source: Lucintel)
In automotive, the current usage of carbon composites is limited to sports, electric and high-performance cars with annual production of less than 10,000 units. However, OEMs are targeting the use of carbon composites in high-volume cars with annual production of 20,000 to 40,000 vehicles. High fuel efficiency (54.5 mpg target by 2025), emission concerns and government policies are generating pressure on OEMs to manufacture lightweight vehicles. Here, carbon composites have a large role to play and can prove to be the game changer. However, price of carbon fiber is a big concern to automakers.
Since the introduction of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that sets binding emissions reduction targets, the use of lightweight materials has offered a monetary benefit. This justifies increased use of lightweight materials in the future. There is a potential of approximately 40 to 60 percent cost reduction in carbon composite parts, with improvement in precursors and advancements in carbon fiber manufacturing processes as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Major Players across Value Chain Nodes Working on Development of Low-Cost Carbon Fiber and Improvements in Manufacturing Processes (Source: Lucintel)
Industry strives to improve manufacturing processes and reach a low cycle time – one to two minutes. There have been numerous successful landmarks in minimizing the parts manufacturing cycle time. In 1981, McLaren introduced the F1 car with a chassis made of carbon composites using prepreg layup. The company took 3,000 hours and 100 employees to build the chassis. When the Mercedes SLR was introduced in 2003, that figure decreased to 400 hours. In 2011, the manufacturing time plummeted to 4 hours for the MP4 12C monocell using the RTM process.
To contribute further, Plasan Composites joined with Globe Machine Manufacturing Co. to develop the pressure press process, which has a parts cycle time of 17 minutes. Lamborghini teamed with Callaway Golf on a forged composite process, which has a parts cycle time of 8.5 minutes. Various other machine manufacturers rely on High Pressure Resin Transfer Molding (HP RTM) for fabricating parts in three to four minutes.
Figure 5: Carbon Fiber Consumption in Global Automotive Industry with Reduction in Part Fabricating Cycle Time (Source: Lucintel)
Advancements in the aerospace industry are tied to the need for improved fuel efficiency. Jet fuel prices almost doubled to $112/barrel in 2012 from $65/ barrel in 2006. Companies are working to reduce cost and improve material performance in airframes. For example, Lockheed Martin is evaluating carbon nano-reinforced polymers (CNRP) to replace approximately 100 components made with other composites or metals throughout the F-35’s airframe. CNRP offers a 20 to 30 percent weight reduction at one tenth of the cost of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) and several times higher strength. Recently, Hexcel came up with a carbon fiber/epoxy sheet molding compound that enables complex shapes to be manufactured in series production.
The benefits of using composites in up to 50 percent of the structural parts of the 787 are shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Use of Composites in Boeing 787 Enables Significant Benefits over Traditional Platforms such as Boeing 767 (Source: Lucintel)
The aerospace industry is moving toward automated tape laying (ATL) and automated fiber placement (AFP) to fabricate parts. Both ATL and AFP machines are very costly and complex to operate. Mikrosam AD has developed a new line of automated fiber placement machines that apply both technologies (ATL and AFP) on a single mandrel. From a single computer, producers can program both technologies. This has resulted in no downtime to change from one machine to another, low manpower and drastic savings in machine investment.
Advancements in the wind energy industry focus on blade length, which has continuously increased in the last 10 years and is expected to increase at an even faster pace in the future. The average turbine size in the United States was 0.89 MW in 2000: This reached 1.94 MW in 2012. All major OEMs are working on large size turbines. For example, Vestas has launched an 8 MW wind turbine and Samsung Heavy Industries introduced a 7 MW turbine. Mitsubishi, Sinovel, Goldwind, Guodian United Power, Sway and Clipper have plans to develop 10 MW turbines, while GE energy will develop turbines ranging from 10 to 15 MW. In addition, Gamesa plans to make a 15 MW turbine.
Increasing blade length requires the use of high-performance materials to increase stiffness and reduce weight. Vestas and Gamesa were early innovators and started using carbon fiber in spar sections. After seeing the benefits, other players followed suit, including GE Energy via Tecsis, Samsung Heavy industries via SSP Technology and ETI via Blade Dynamics. Figure 7 demonstrates the spar cap mass and spar-to-blade weight ratio at various blade lengths.
Figure 7: Spar cap Mass and Spar to Blade Weight Ratio at Various Blade Length: Glass v/s Carbon Fiber (Source: Lucintel)
Material suppliers are stepping up to the plate to provide solutions to the wind market. Owens Corning, PPG and 3B introduced glass fiber with high strength and stiffness properties. Resin suppliers such as Huntsman, Dow Chemical, Ashland and DSM have launched toughened resin systems for wind applications. A new resin from DSM – ZW7844 – offers wind turbine blade manufacturers the mechanical performance of epoxy resin with the processing advantages of unsaturated polyester resin. Bayer Material Science recently introduced a new class of nano-enhanced Baydur polyurethane systems, which offer blade manufacturers low volatile organic compound emissions and faster infusion time.
Another overall trend in composites is the use of environmentally-friendly materials for various applications. This has led to significant innovations in formulations of bio-based resins. New refinery technology that can produce plant-based bio-chemicals for key resin monomers are also driving this market. Many resin suppliers, including AOC, Ashland, Reichhold, Huntsman, DSM, Cereplast, Natureworks, Dixie Chemical and CTS, are developing resin systems which have less volatile content. There is still not much traction in the use of bio-resin in the composites industry, however its usage is increasing in other industries. Some of the applications for bio-resins and natural composites are in electronics and automotive industries. (For an in-depth look at bio-resins, read “Bio-Resin Market: Still Budding, But No Boom”)
In conclusion, there is both opportunity and risk in driving innovations. Approximately 95 percent of new product launches fail for various reasons, including insufficient market research, ineffective marketing and poor understanding of the competition. Sophisticated analytical tools and data-driven decisions can reduce risks. It is important to cautiously invest in opportunities that will bring long-term growth.
