Bcomp wins JEC Innovation Award

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.

On its booth, Bcomp presented its new 0/90° powerRibs 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 %.

Thus, the powerRibs 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.

Another of Bcomp’s JEC corner points was displayed at the JEC Innovation Showcase and won the 2014 JEC Americas Innovation Award: 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 low-crimp ampliTex flax with its cashew nutshell-based bio-resin to make a novel, high-performance prepreg named Ekoa, which was engineered into this game-changing instrument by Blackbird Guitars.