On May 11th 2021, Brightlands Materials Center (BMC) hosted the SAMPE Benelux virtual Spring meeting 2021. Visit the article for the a more detailed account of the event.
On May 11th 2021, Brightlands Materials Center (BMC) hosted the SAMPE Benelux virtual Spring meeting 2021. The meeting focus was on recent developments in the field of Thermoplastic Composites and Continuous Fiber Additive Manufacturing, targeting solutions that contribute to a sustainable future. We were welcomed by Marc Huisman, the Program Manager Lightweight Automotive of BMC. In this program, BMC focuses on hybrid thermoplastic composites and recycling. Scientist Amandine Codou of BMC explained to us how BMC develops techniques to recycle thermoplastic composites to new LFT products while optimally retaining the fibre length. In a next presentation, Régis Voillat of Bcomp showed how flax fiber can be used in sports, transport and infrastructure applications, and even in space! Next, Matthijs van Wijk showed with the LUCA car of the TU/ecomotive student team how waste materials such as PET bottles, ocean plastic, coconut fibre and horse hair can be revalued to make car components. The winners of the SAMPE Benelux student meeting were on the virtual stage next: Gaétan Poelman of UGent shared his research work to optimize thermographic inspection of composites and Kevin Vervoort of U Twente visualized how eddy currents run during induction heating of composites. Jorn Behage explained in his presentation how the new company Arapaha works with self-reinforced PLA to create parts of fully circular composites! To conclude the meeting, Richard Janssen of the BMC Additive Manufacturing program, showed us how continuous fibre additive manufacturing can be used to make highly structural parts such as the lugs of the 100% Limburg Bike but also how self-sensing can be integrated into 3D printed composites.
