Bcomp exhibits natural fibre composites at JEC Europe

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year’s JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications at different locations simultaneously.

 

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year's JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications#

New powerRibs

On its booth, Bcomp presented its new 0/90° power Ribs fabrics, which were developed to take maximum advantage of the flax’ high stiffness to weight ratio and low density. The technology allows designing thin walled composite parts with a flexural stiffness per weight ratio equivalent to a pure carbon composite part, however with a damping performance increased by 250 %.

 

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year's JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications#

Thus, the power Ribs technology is the solution of choice for composite shell elements with high stiffness and damping requirements, allowing its use in a wide variety of applications in the composite industry, ranging from interior semi structural parts with a unique look, to structural exterior shell elements. Especially the automotive, aerospace and sport marked players showed a big interest in the new products.

 

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year's JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications#

The video artist, Xavier Ducry, produced for the JEC exhibition a masterpiece that explains the power Ribs technology in a simple way. You can admire it now on Bcomp’s homepage.

 

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year's JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications#

First concert level instrument

Another of Bcomp’s JEC corner points was displayed at the JEC Innovation Showcase: Clara is the first concert level ukulele made from natural fibre composites, combining lightweight, strength and toughness with an unparalleled sound quality. To realize this product, Lingrove Composites combined Bcomp's lowcrimp ampliTex flax with its cashew nutshell based bioresin to make a novel, high performance prepreg named Ekoa, which was engineered into this game changing instrument by Blackbird Guitars. The object is so handy and light that some visitor of the exhibition had stolen the instrument two hours before the shows closing.

 

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year's JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications#

Strong partnerships

Bcomp partner 3A Composites exhibited Bcomp’s balsaflax ski core –bCore D200 – the world’s lightest wood ski core with a density of 190 kg/m3. Thanks to its extremely low weight and great performance on snow, the bCore D200 has generated a lot of buzz in the winter sports industry, leading to Bcomp customers winning the prestigious ISPO Award three years in a row.

 

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year's JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications#

Another manufacturing partner Gerster TechTex displayed Bcomp’s ampliTex light fabrics, showing their unique combination of optical perfection and outstanding performance on a skate board deck.

 

It was difficult to miss Bcomp at this year's JEC show in Paris: the natural fibre composite specialist exposed its products and customer applications#

Just before the opening of the worldwide biggest composite show, Sicomin entered a partnership with Bcomp for the distribution of the ampliTex range in France. Sicomin is a specialist for resin systems and has a deep composite knowledge. Bcomp is very proud to cooperate with this company.