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Polypropylene is typically reinforced with commodities that are non renewable and require a great deal of energy to produce. The marketplace needs a reinforcement that can offer beneficial physical properties, such as impact, while being attained from a renewable green source. Compounding flax fiber, which is traditionally an agricultural waste product burned by farmers, with polypropylene yields physical properties similar to traditional glass filled polypropylene. This combination should lead to cost saving opportunities while not sacrificing part performance. Presenter James Preston, Rhetech Inc.

The BMW Group has introduced electric cars to the market with the MINI E already in 2009. The next step will be the launch of the BMW ActiveE in 2011, followed by the revolutionary Mega City Vehicle in 2013. The presentation will explain the BMW Group strategy for implementing sustainable mobility. A focus will be emobility, the use of carbon fiber and the holistic sustainability approach of BMW Group?s project i. Reference will be made to the research results of the MINI E projects in the US and in Europe. Presenter Andreas Klugescheid, BMW AG

Optical fiber has begun replacing copper in avionic networks. So far, however, it has been mainly restricted to non-critical applications (video transmission to the flight deck, IFE?). In order to take advantage of the high-bandwidth, low weight, no EMI properties of optical fibers in all data transmission networks, it will be necessary to improve the testing. One part of the puzzle, which is still missing, is the self-test button: the possibility to check the network and detect potential failures before they occur. The typical testing tool of a technician involved in optical fiber cables is the ?light source ? optical power meter? pair. With this tool, one can measure the insertion loss of the fiber link. A second important parameter, the return loss at each optical connector, is not analysed. In addition, this is only a global measurement, which does not allow the detection of possible weak points.

Edgewater Computer Systems Inc. product RTEdge Platform 1.2 is a software toolset supporting proof based engineering, implementation and deployment of software components, built using the RTEdge AADL Microkernel modeling subset. This is a small subset of the AADL component model and execution semantics, covering threads and thread-groups communicating solely through asynchronous event ports and through explicitly shared data ports. Threads behavior is expressed as state machines and dispatch run time semantics is encoded in a Run-time Executive, enforcing pre-emptive priority dispatch based on statically assigned event priorities, with ceiling priority protocol access to shared data. This simple AADL microkernel semantic core can support all dispatch policies, communication and synchronization mechanisms of a fully fledged AADL run time environment, permitting the systematic use of the RTEdge static analysis tools for AADL compliant software components.

The aerospace industry has long sought a solution for storing maintenance history information directly on aircraft parts. In 2005 leading airframe manufacturers determined that passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology presented a unique opportunity to address this industry need. Through the efforts of the Air Transport Association (ATA) RFID on Parts Committee and SAE International testing standards and data specifications are in place to support the broad adoption of passive RFID for storing parts history information directly on aircraft parts. The primary focus of the paper will be on the SAE AS-5678 environmental testing standard for passive RFID tags intended for aircraft use. Detail will be provided to help aerospace manufacturers understand their role and responsibilities for current programs and understand how this may impact their parts certification process.

In any new aircraft development program there are many important design decisions that determine profitability potential. The key to making new aircraft profitable is to design features that will command more money than the cost to provide them within the market's ability to absorb them. The business model in this paper shows how to predict or find: 1) the costs to provide various aircraft features; 2) the values that aircraft buyers place on these features; 3) the amount of money that buyers have to commit to them, 4) the open spaces in the market in which to place new designs and 5) the predicted profits from new designs. In this process, this paper extends previous work on the law of value and demand, which states that attributes determine value; value determines price; and that price determines demand. This four-dimensional, non-negative system hosts a business model that describes the features needed to enable aircraft designs to go from concepts to profitable assembly lines.

Many manufacturing companies want to apply AFP technology to complex high-curvature part shapes. As new AFP machine technologies are developed to specifically apply material over complex shapes, new and innovative NC programming approaches are needed to successfully, reliably, and accurately apply material with good consolidation, while meeting the fiber direction and coverage requirements. A big issue with AFP is the production rate vs. part complexity. Most complex shapes can be created with a single .125? wide strip (tow) of material. But the production time would be impractically long. So machine builders create 6, 8, 16, even 32 tow AFP heads, and use the widest tow possible for the highest laydown rates. But then wide compaction rollers on these systems have difficulty consolidating material over curved surfaces, and the minimum steering radius of wider tows challenge the software?s ability to meet the layup requirements.

In a variety of industries there is a growing need to manufacture high quality carbon fibre epoxy matrix composite structures at greater production rates and lower costs than has historically been the case. This has developed into a desire for the automation of the manufacture of components, and in particular the lay-up phase, with Automated Tape Laying (ATL) and Fibre Placement (AFP) the most popular choices. When used for large primary structures there are such potential gains to be had that both techniques have seen rapid implementation into manufacturing environments. But significant concerns remain and these have limited their wider adoption into secondary structure manufacturing, where manual forming of woven broadgoods is dominant. As a result the manufacture of secondary structures is generally explored for costs reduction through drape simulation and lower cost materials.

In this presentation we will present a COTS solution for an ARINC 653 IMA based system. It will cover IMA concepts from an OS point of view and show how a platform can be built for application development. It will also cover DO-297, and how that can isolate applications for certification and test purposes and allow for easy configuration of multiple applications between different development teams. Presenter Alex Wilson, Wind River

For internal combustion engines and industrial machinery, it is well recognized that the most cost-effective way of reducing energy consumption and extending service life is through lubricant development. This presentation summarizes our recent R&D achievements on developing a new class of candidate lubricants or oil additives ionic liquids (ILs). Features of ILs making them attractive for lubrication include high thermal stability, low vapor pressure, non-flammability, and intrinsic high polarity. When used as neat lubricants, selected ILs demonstrated lower friction under elastohydrodynamic lubrication and less wear at boundary lubrication benchmarked against fully-formulated engine oils in our bench tests. More encouragingly, a group of non-corrosive, oil-miscible ILs has recently been developed and demonstrated multiple additive functionalities including anti-wear and friction modifier when blended into hydrocarbon base oils.

This presentation will introduce the overall goals of the EcoCAR competition in brief, and will go into the third and final year of the competition in detail. The final year of competition saw teams refining and testing their student-built advanced technology vehicles including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell PHEVs and one battery electric. Important events, such as the Spring Workshop chassis dynamometer testing event at the U.S. Environmental Protection agency, as well as significant competition results, such as vehicle performance, consumer acceptability and efficiency will be presented. Presenter Patrick Walsh

Corning Specialty Fiber Group developed new optical fibers with acrylate type coating materials for elevated temperature applications (up to +200C). Available single or dual coat designs, hermetic carbon coating, bend insensitive single-mode and multimode fiber glass designs expand application areas for fiber optics. Presenter Valery Kozlov

Presented by: Dan Ott Web Industries Director, Business Development, Advanced Composites Market With the growth of Fiber Placement technology as a preferred automation technology in aerospace manufacturing and the rapid growth of new production line installations, it is crucial to provide material in a form which meets all necessary specifications and supports the optimum productivity available from this major capital investment made by the producer of the parts. Achieving these goals happnes when the part designer, AFP machine builder, and the slit tape producer design the best process and format which provides smooth, efficient and rapid delivery of the prepreg slit tape to the Fiber Placement laydown head. Tape size (width), slit width tolerance, spool shape and size, density of prepreg on the spool, spool change-over and handling processes all play a factor in productivity, and creating (or inhibiting) the best ROI on a full-scale AFP production line.