Tuesday, April 27, 2010
ITW Plexus Structural Adhesives Workshop
ITW Plexus Structural Adhesives Workshop at Leyland Trucks.
The first Structural Adhesives Workshop of 2010 was held at Leyland Trucks on Friday 23rd April. The event was hailed a success by all who took part. The open forum format enabled people from all different departments to share ideas and ask questions on the use of adhesives. Chris Coll (Territory Manager - UK & Ireland) and Sally Sinai (Technical Support Manager) fielded the questions on the day while a wide variety of engineers tried to break the samples and figure out what the infra red camera housing, brought as a demonstration, actually was.
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Thursday, April 22, 2010
Structurally Green
A current factor that affects industry is the Environment and the impact that industry has on it. The word ‘green’ refers to the Environment and the efforts in reducing or eliminating harmful by-products, emissions and waste.
So, who measures ‘green’?
Obviously there are independent organizations such as Government agencies (e.g. HSE), industry groups like BASA and Greenguard Environment Institute (GEI). There are also the customers and the manufacturers.
A Methylmethacrylate (MMA) is a two component, structural adhesive. They provide an alternative for traditional assembly methods. In terms of ‘green’ MMAs offer several advantages:
• Low VOC emissions
• Less than 0.5% VOCs
• No Off-gassing issues
• Safe for indoor and closed locations
• Recyclability
MMAs eliminate toxins to the greatest extent possible. Products are developed with as much focus on human health as on the performance and this reduces the hazardous or toxic materials considerably. Unlike traditional assembly methods MMAs offer regrindability.
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Monday, April 19, 2010
JEC 2010 Review
JEC is one of the eagerly awaited exhibitions in the composites industry with hundreds of companies globally exhibiting. The exhibition did seem quieter than last year. This could be put that down to the effects of the recession or that many of the Resin manufacturers did not attend as they did in 2009.
Overall a good show, demonstrating different applications within the composite industry, some of which can be seen below.
On arrival we found ourselves being drawn to the Lamborghini. Italy was the honorary country so Lamborghini had the Tevatron on display.

Lamborghini Tevatron
Having spent most of the day visiting the stands, we did come across some interesting applications using composites in particular the soccer shoes, manufactured using Tepex by Bond Laminates.

It’s raining shoes

Jean-Charles ‘It’s a tough job, but someones gota do it’

Mike Howard and Alex Grazia
As always, the Innovation showcase had on display some impressive applications, a few of them include;

Motomare ski boat by Krauss Maffiei

Composite Chassis Carbon Safety cell for a race car by Sora Composites

Mountain spring on a conventional mountaineering boot, a binding for turning and an ultra light carbon ski used by famous Skiers and Alpinist, by Alp Control

Composite Kayak by Kiln
It’s the one time of the year in which the majority of our distributors gather at one place. It was a pleasure to have met them all and reflected on what was happening in the marketplace and to discuss the show.
Although the volcanic ash is playing havoc with travel plans we hope you had a safe journey back.
ITW Plexus will be exhibiting at the JEC in 2011, so hope to see you then.
Posted by Gurpreet Pawar, Marketing Executive, Rushden, UK
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
2009 Plexus distributor of the year awarded to Ulbrich
During a recent visit by Kevin Lacey, Frank Senden and me to the Ulbrich facility in Austria we had great pleasure in awarding the distributor of the year award for 2009.
This is a new award that we felt would act as a sign of our thanks for the work and effort displayed by our distributors. We intend to make this an annual event and hope that all our distributors take up the challenge in order to be our next recipients. The criteria for winning this award included excellence in the sales process and value added initiatives.
2009 was a difficult year for everybody and some markets were affected more seriously than others. A number of projects that we were all expecting to start were pushed back and the reduction in outputs meant that we were all fighting to limit the negative figures. Ulbrich encountered these same issues and embarked on a strategy to solidify their approvals and position for projects that would start later and also diversify from its traditional markets and looking for new projects. They did this and were rewarded with some good projects last year and also a great start to 2010 with a number of the delayed projects picking up pace.
With this in mind it gave us great pleasure in presenting this award to them and we shared a few beers and a great meal to celebrate.

(Left to Right) Frank Senden, Jürgen Kaupp, Mike Howard, Iain Ford and Johannes Ulbrich
We look forward to being in a position to select our next winner at the end of 2010 and take this opportunity to thank all of our distributors for their fantastic efforts during 2009.
Once again congratulations to Ulbrich and let the competition for 2010 begin.
Posted by Mike Howard, European Business Manager, Rushden, UK
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