Archive for category: News

Phenix City, AL – Vectorply Corporation, a Phenix City, Ala.-based manufacturer of high performance composite non-crimp fabrics (NCF), officially opened the doors of their new Advanced Composite Reinforcement Center with a Grand Opening Ceremony in front of friends, customers, and suppliers on Wednesday, June 14, 2017.

The new 53,000 sq. ft. (5,000 sq.m.) facility features 38,000 sq. ft. (3,500 sq. m.) of manufacturing space dedicated to producing the company’s VectorUltra™ line of advanced multiaxial reinforcements. In addition, the new facility boasts 6,000 sq. ft. (557 sq. m.) for Vectorply’s Technical Services and Engineering Team, including a fully-equipped composite materials lab. The expansion also includes a two story, 9,000 sq. ft. (836 Sq. m.) office for the sales and service staff.

Currently, Vectorply produces 19 standard carbon products ranging from a 3-oz. (100 gsm.) biaxial fabric to a 94-oz. (3,193 gsm.) mirror-image quadraxial tooling fabric.

Vectorply’s new composite materials lab was built with a goal of fabricating and mechanically testing composite laminates for both customer project support and internal/external R&D efforts. The new lab provides the capability to fabricate laminates via hand lamination, vacuum infusion, wet bagging, LRTM, or oven cured prepreg, with all relevant processing parameters tracked and recorded. The finished panels are then precisely machined for testing to determine tensile, compressive, flexural, in-plane shear, or interlaminar shear properties on their new United SFM “SMART 1” Floor Model 100kN test frame.

With the addition of the Advanced Composite Reinforcement Center, Vectorply is further establishing themselves as a premier supplier of high-performance carbon fabrics for demanding applications where weight savings and performance are key. Targeted market segments include aerospace, defense, and transportation along with infrastructure, marine, and sports and recreation.

Along with the additional manufacturing capabilities, Vectorply is also committed to growing an already highly-skilled team of employees. Recent additions of Customer Service Team Leader Mandy Pierce, Process Improvement Manager Paul Shiver, and Composite Materials Test Engineer Leigh Nolen have brought a wealth of specified experience to the team. Vectorply will also welcome Quality Assurance Manager Jay Woodrow to the team in July to continue the mission of only providing the highest quality fabrics with unparalleled consistency to customers.

Vectorply’s new addition proudly reflects the name of founder and CEO Don Massey, who started the company in 1992 as Tech Textiles, USA. In May, Massey was presented with a bronze plaque that was placed on the front of the building naming the facility the ‘Donald L. Massey Advanced Composite Reinforcement Center’, which included one of his core business principles for success, “A company’s reputation is its only sustainable competitive advantage. We will constantly strive to preserve our reputation of excellence”.

For more information on Vectorply, please visit our website, vectorply.com, or call our team at 334-291-7704 or 1-800-577-4521.

VectorLam Cirrus 2.0 is a laminate analysis and design tool created by high performance composite reinforcement manufacturer Vectorply Corporation (Phenix City, Ala.). With the most recent software update, VectorLam has added vital alert massages along with new features to improve the user experience. Below are some of the new features:

• Materials can now be deleted.

• When a user deletes a report, a confirmation/warning message will appear.

• Previously, a confirmation message appeared when a ply in a laminate was deleted. This was removed to speed up the process of modifying laminates.

• Throughout the Beam, DNV, ISO, Plate, etc. reports, warning messages have been added. These warn users about required values and if values are entered that are outside of the applicability of DNV and ISO.

• A user can now save a partially completed beam or plate within DNV, ISO Plate, etc. and return to it later. In the past, the beam or plate had to be fully completed before it could be saved.

VectorLam Cirrus 2.0 is a free program for anyone interested in designing and analyzing laminates. To register, visit www.vectorply.com and follow the link under our technical services tab.

PHENIX CITY, Ala. – Vectorply Corporation will showcase its full VectorUltra™ line of carbon multiaxial fabrics September 26-29 in Anaheim, CA at the Composites and Advanced Materials Expo (CAMX) 2016.

Vectorply’s standard VectorUltra products are offered in unidirectional, biaxial, double-bias, triaxial, quadraxial, and multilayered architectures ranging from 3 oz./yd.² (100 gsm) to 94 oz./yd.² (3,193 gsm). These products are always in stock and readily available for customers. Visitors to Vectorply’s booth will be able to view and discuss our full line of VectorUltra materials with our sales and engineering teams.

The VectorUltra line of advanced reinforcements provides a wide range of unique products that allow users to accomplish their specific goals. Vectorply’s balanced and symmetric C-4QX 9400 fabric, for example, is an excellent fit for tooling, panel, and thick section advanced composite applications. A toughened line of products with added Micromesh veils help to reduce delamination/damage zone size and retain structural integrity in the event of an impact.

Vectorply Corporation Director of Composites Engineering, Trevor Gundberg, P.E., will also participate in an aerospace textiles panel organized by SAMPE’s Ted Lynch. Gundberg will discuss the advantages of non-crimp fabrics in the aerospace market during the panel, which will be followed by a Q&A session for the audience. The panel will take place Thursday, September 29 from 8 a.m. to 9:55 a.m. in a meeting room yet to be determined.

Visit Vectorply’s booth at space J48 to learn how our wide range of composite reinforcements can make your product lighter and stronger while also reducing processing time and labor costs!

Vectorply will also be exhibiting at the International Boatbuilders’ Exhibition and Conference (IBEX) in Tampa, FL on October 4-6 in booth 1051.

We look forward to seeing you at CAMX and IBEX this year!

PHENIX CITY, Ala. – Vectorply Corporation announced in February at the company’s National Sales Meeting that the addition of a new Advanced Composites Facility would begin during the spring. With the site preparation completed, foundation construction began this week as the first concrete footings were poured. Check back at www.vectorply.com for more news and updates about this exciting addition!

 

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Destrehan, LA – Spanning the Mississippi River to connect Destrehan on the east bank to Luling on the west bank, the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge (also known as the Luling Bridge) is one of the state of Louisiana’s most crucial pieces of infrastructure.  With the bridge in need of surface repairs, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development turned to Engineering Consultant Malcolm Huval of Huval and Associates to find a solution that provided the most longevity.
The Luling Bridge is a 10,699-foot-long suspension bridge that presented Huval and Associates with the difficult task of developing a flexible composite structure that would adhere to the steel plate on the bridge as well as the concrete that would be poured for the roadway.  For this tall task, Huval developed a composite system utilizing Vectorply’s Kevlar/E-glass hybrid material and a highly adhesive and flexible epoxy resin.

“Bridges constantly move, especially suspension bridges, so a typical concrete and steel reinforced surface does not do well by itself and will eventually end up cracking,” explained Vectorply’s South/Central Region Sales Manager Doug Lachapelle. “The combination of specialized composite materials and resins make concrete surfaces on suspension bridges possible.”

The Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge is the latest infrastructure project to show the value composites provide in revitalization and repair. To find out more about using composites in your infrastructure or construction application, call Vectorply at 334-291-7704 or visit our website www.vectorply.com.