The July/August issue of Reinforced Plastics magazine, traditionally our 'summer issue,' is published this week.
Here in the UK the weather has certainly not realised that it is summer yet, but there have been plenty of events to distract us. As I write this we are in the second week of the Olympic Games in London and there has been plenty of composites sports equipment on display there – from cycling, to sailing, to tennis.
Sports equipment is a big user of composites and an area where designers are constantly pushing the materials to provide that extra performance. This story on the Dutch Olympic Teams’ rowing boat is one example.
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Of course there are many less glamorous applications for composites and rail is perhaps one of these. An essential part of our infrastructure the railways, in line with other forms of transportation, are seeking to reduce their energy useage (and hopefully their ticket costs). The July/August issue contains a feature discussing why composites have not made as much progress in rail vehicles as aircraft, where the latest models have 50% composites content, including primary load-bearing structure. (Part 1 of this feature is also available on our website.)
Also in this issue we have features on composites for wind turbine blades, including a look at the state of the art, Siemen’s new 75 m long blade, which will be used on a 6 MW offshore turbine with a swept area equivalent to almost two and a half soccer fields.
There is a feature on the use of composites in spacecraft, another topical subject as several commercial companies are now developing spacecraft. Over 500 people have now signed up for suborbital flights on Virgin Galatic’s space tourism venture. Not bad, considering each passenger has to pay $200 000 per flight.