Oxford Advanced Surfaces Limited (OAS), based in the UK, recently reached an important milestone: treating 1 million ft2 of composites with its ‘Onto’ surface technology, an adhesion promoter that could replace sanding or abrasion for surface preparation.
According to the company, by replacing abrasion as a surface preparation for composites, Onto can help improve quality and reduce processing times by up to 90%. Sanding or abrasion as a surface preparation can be slow and labor intensive, risks damaging parts (over-sanding produces scrap parts) and dirty (all the dust that is removed needs to be extracted and workers need to wear respiration PPE).
Onto can be used in volume manufacturing of composites in all areas of manufacturing and is also easy to use with complex shapes, OAS says.
The material is increasingly used in sectors in including wind energy, aerospace and sporting goods and is enabling manufacturers to deliver large efficiencies.
