The Sampe Benelux fall meeting took place on the 1st of December 2022 at the Solvay Material Science Application Centre in Brussels. We were welcomed by Laurent Hazard who gave a nice introduction of the activities of Solvay. Jérémy Chevalier explained about Solvays building block approach for the assessment of overmoulded thermoplastic parts and Xavier Carette of FERONYL sa told us about the cooperation that he had with Solvay on the industrialisation of thermoplastic composites. After a short break Wim Van Paepegem of Universiteit Gent presented impressive work on the testing and modelling of short fibre composites. Special thanks goes out to Rien van den Aker of van Wees UD and Crossply Technology who filled up a gap in our program on a very short notice, by presenting the developments of Van Wees on large scale equipment for processing of thermoplastic composites. After the lunch, curtesy of Solvay, Marcus Kremers presented Airbornes Automated Ply Placement technology for multi-materials and last but not least was Tomasz Czarnecki of EconCore, presenting the advancements in performance and reductions in production cost of thermoplastic honeycomb materials.
After these talks, we had a tour in the Solvay facility, which boasts numerous analysis and testing equipment, from creep testing up to high speed fracture testing. Very impressive!
The network drink, organised by Solvay, could fortunately soften the heart ache for the Belgian attendees a little bit, after learning the disappointing result in Qatar.
Sampe Benelux would like to thank Solvay for hosting the successful event and we hope to see all of you and more again during the Sampe Benelux spring event which will be hosted next year by SAM XL in Delft.
