COMPOSITES LOUNGE - Das Online Experten Netzwerk

Ilkay Özkisaoglu
Since 04/2021 150 Episoden

#145 The Länd Interview during JEC World 2024

21.10.2024 11 min Staffel 5 Episode 102

Zusammenfassung & Show Notes

The Composites Industry in THE LÄND has gone through some restructuring.

Join our discussion with Markus Milwich of Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung Denkendorf (DITF) ahead of the JEC Forum DACH in Stuttgart in only about two weeks time.

Markus explains the new structure of Allianz Faserbasierte Werkstoffe Baden-Württemberg (AFBW) e.V. with their founding partners Composites United and LBZ.

He also underlines the importance of governmental support, which regrettably ceased for lightweight construction earlier this year.

As to JEC Forum DACH 2024 Markus says, quote many innovative SMEs and large companies conduct research and production in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg and the neighboring DACH region.

The JEC Forum, organized by JEC Group and AVK, connects the strong composite community of the DACH region in an effective discussion format. The JEC Forum DACH is an important event of the events and activities in the field of lightweight construction, bioeconomy and circular economy in Baden-Württemberg, including the Lightweight Construction Congress on November 6th, the Natural Fiber Congress on October 9th and the Carbon Recycling Congress on February 19th, 2025.

Register on this AFBW event here: https://leichtbau-bw.eu/

JEC Group posted about its JEC Forum DACH today:

"Only 2 weeks left before JEC Forum DACH 2024, which will take place on October 22nd and 23rd 2024 in Stuttgart, Germany!

Don’t miss the opportunity to:
- Maximise business opportunities by meeting industry experts, innovators and decision-makers
- Attend conferences to stay up to date on the latest trends and innovations in the composites market
- Take part in a Special Composites Tour!

Register now! https://lnkd.in/eRhXNmxg

See you in Stuttgart soon!

Transkript

Dear LinkedIn community and composites lounge experts out there. We are coming slowly to the end of day one (JEC World 2024). And today I promised you I will show you some of the pavilions, the German federal pavilions, and I'm here at The Länd. The Länd in German is Baden-Württemberg. Markus, do you know what's in English? Baden-Württemberg? -it's Baden-Württemberg. Also Baden-Württemberg. Very easy, because Bayern is Bavaria. In this case we are in Baden-Württemberg. And Markus Milwich he is now here at The Länd. May I ask you to introduce yourself. What is your role here at The Länd? -I have several roles. Firstly, I am doing composites research in the DITF (Centre for Polymers and Composites, Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung) in Denkendorf. But I'm also now since three months representative of Baden-Württemberg in the field of composites. -So the DITF in pronunciation is Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung, which is one of my domains, because I'm a textile guy. Textile reinforcement is very important. What do you think about textiles? What kind of textiles? -Well, textiles is the beginning. Textiles are very important for sure, as you see all around us here. And I'm also a textile man. So I studied textile in Stuttgart. It's everyday a new thing, everyday a new thing to to see here on the fair. Well, fibers and textiles are the future. Markus, if you have one tip for all the textile processors out there concerning composite production, what would be the number one thing that they are always overlooking? -Money. Money? The cost side? Yes. Because the textile people they love "Veredlung". They love the sizing and play around with the features of the textiles. Yes, for sure. So we are since many, many years, many years cost sure. And many processes went abroad. And so we the cost is really always for the textiles a big thing. But I think we're doing good in Germany and for the technical textiles there's always a big future here in Germany, and technical textiles and fiber reinforced textiles. On our right hand side. I'm seeing the JEC innovation award. A colleague of mine, Hermann Fink and his crew, is a simulation group, but they did a thing for wood cutting tool and it is made for fiber reinforced composites. This tool can work double as fast as a metallic tool. And so they got the price. -So we are back at cost reduction, right? At cost reduction, because a useful metal tool would do 10,000 turns per minute. And this is 20,000. So Markus, now we are here at the JEC World on your pavilion, The Länd. And of course I would like to give a glimpse of the ecosystem of Baden-Wuerttemberg to the world. Can you describe us how is the ecosystem in Baden-Württemberg? How are you organized here? And I understand there is some reorganization being done. You have focused your power. Since January 2024, we newly founded the Alliance on Fiber Reinforced Composites in Baden-Württemberg, and we done our best to get the companies and the research together. And there are three partners AFBW, Composites United and LBZ e.V. are three partners. They work together and funded the Alliance of Fiber Reinforced Composites Leichtbau BW. And so we organize again the stuff we did before and hope we bring together the companies, the research people and also the community. It's necessary to say that it's very, very important to do this because the TTP LB (Technologie Transfer Programm Leichtbau) lightweight thing of the German government is canceled. That's a big, big sorry to do that. And we have to fight together to bring the composites forward and to tell the people and the politicians how important the lightweight is in saving money, in saving energy and saving the environment. -We have this technology transfer Leichtbau programme of the Ministry of Economy and Climate Action (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, Germany) that you are referring to, and it's really sorry to hear that they have canceled this 140 million Euro fund. And unfortunately, this has not gotten too much of an public attention so far. But we would like to talk to Berlin and get the awareness raised as a community, because 140 million is quite a number. -We have to tell the politicians they should be sure that lightweight construction is sustainability in saving material and saving energy in saving energy consumption. -Absolutely. This is a big talk we have to do. And I want to mention that we have the Leichtbautag in Baden-Wuerttemberg in November 2024. When is it? -6th of November 2024 at Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart. So we progress, we going on and always looking for inviting the politicians that I do know what we talk about when we talk about composites and the community. -Markus, you are an expert in lightweight technologies and composites. Tell me, what happens if composites wouldn't be there, if the fundings are going down, investments are going down. Would this have negative repercussions on innovation, for example. Yeah. For sure. I mean, the lightweight construction is a topology optimization, and we can do that also in lightweight construction. It's more important to do that in lightweight construction, because topology optimization is lightweight saving is light construction. And we can do that in composites better than in metal. Markus, you have some stuff to show around. Shall we move to the other place? And you show me some parts? Yes. -Markus, we are now at The Länd booth, and now we are here on a glass vitrine with a lot of samples. And you brought some samples with us. So just run us through these samples here. -We have some nice samples from the companies, which are around us in The Länd in The Länd of Baden-Württemberg. And we are proud that we have a really nice exponent here to show around. And I want to emphasise that we have super companies here doing lightweight construction and they are here in this vitrine. You see around us many companies around us. And this is just an excerpt. I want to show you then some exponents. Those 3D printing with endless carbon reinforced polyamide. So this is the next step of 3D printing with endless carbon fibers. The next is the demonstrator of our automotive part with recycled carbon. So we have to think about how we process the recycled carbon fibers into new demonstrators and the new parts. So this is a demonstrator of a building with natural fiber composites. And I think the next steps in the carbon in the fiber reinforced composites is also a part of natural fibers. And this is a building, a temporary building, we do with endless fiber or stable fibers, natural fibers. So and here's also a part in pultrusion. It is a part not with heat curing but with UV curing. And so the dye won't get heated up. It's just curing with UV light.