History and Meetings of SAMPE Benelux for the period 2004-2007

History of SAMPE Benelux

SAMPE Benelux started beginning of the 80 ies, just after the creation of SAMPE Europe. Louis Van Arkel, Hexcel Composites, was the first Benelux National delegate. With the help of members from other Benelux Composites companies, they formed the Benelux board and organised twice the SAMPE Europe annual conferences which at that time took place independently from the JEC.

Because of the multi lingual aspects of the 3 countries involved, the official language within the SAMPE Benelux is English.

Thanks to the historically strong aerospace activity in the BNL, the main interest of the group is still on composite materials for demanding applications in areas such as aerospace, transport, infrastructure, energy ....

There has been a strong influence from well known companies and universities such as Fokker, Hexcel, Ten Cate Advanced Composites, KU Leuven, TU Delft, ...

Today, the membership is diversified, and the discussion topics range from the sandwich solar panels for satellite to the advanced production process for cardboard sandwich materials used in the low cost packaging industry.

SAMPE Benelux counts about 125 members now, both professionals from industry and academia and students. Recently, SAMPE Benelux also received the SAMPE chapter status. This chapter status confirms the importance and the unique identity of the SAMPE Benelux organisation within SAMPE International and SAMPE Europe.

Meetings of SAMPE Benelux

Two meetings a year are usually organized at one of our member’s company. It is a one-day event, with 4 to 6 presentations and a tour of the facility. We try to alternate between Belgium and the Netherlands. To know more about upcoming SAMPE Benelux meetings, do not hesitate to contact one of the SAMPE Benelux delegates below.

Next events:

• Spring seminar and visit to NLR (National Aerospace Laboratories of the Netherlands, in Marknesse, NL, http://www.nlr.nl ) on June 11, 2008
• Fall seminar and visit to Euro-composites (in Echternach, Lux, http://www.eurocomposites.com ) on November 12, 2008

Previous recent meetings can be summarized as follows:

• November 13, 2007, at TechSpace Aero ( http://www.techspace-aero.be/ ), Herstal, Belgium:
  Visit to the assembly of low pressure compressors for aircraft engines, visit to the engine repair area and valve manufacturing for space applications.
  Presentations by Techspace Aero on its R&D activities for composites in engine applications, by sister company SPS (Safran group) on thermostructural composites and by invited speakers on textile modeling, on structural health monitoring with fibre-optic sensors, on friction stir welding of Aluminium extrusions and on RTM “from prototype to serial production”
• April 24, 2007, at Ten Cate Advanced Composites ( http://www.tencate.com ), Nijverdal, the Netherlands Visit to the facilities of Ten Cate Advanced Composites (TCAC):
  weaving of glass and carbon fibre fabrics, prepregging of CETEX thermoplastic prepregs, thermoplastic laminate pressing, quality control laboratory, ...
  Presentations on CETEX applications and developments ongoing at TCAC, on process monitoring with fibre optic sensors, on the development of a thermoplastic wing skin, on new high performance glass fibre reinforcements and on thermoplastic composite developments at Stork Fokker
• November 21, 2006, at Sabena Technics ( http://www.sabenatechnics.com/ ), Zaventem, Belgium:
  Visit to the repair workshop, showing damage and repairs on amongst others composite radomes, Aluminium sandwich control surfaces, cowlings,... Also visit to the manufacturing area for large composite bellmouths used for performance testing of aircraft engines.
  Presentations on repair procedures at Sabena technics and at KVE, on repairs for windmill blades, on riveted versus bonded repairs, on aircraft integrated structural health assessment and on use of multi-axial fibre Bragg sensors.
• April 19, 2006, at GTM Advanced Structures ( http://gtm-as.com/ )and Airborne ( http://www.airborne.nl/en/ ), Den Haag, the Netherlands:
  Visit to the facilities of GTM Advanced Structures with equipment to lay-up, manufacture, test and inspect fiber-metal laminates and visit to the facilities of Airborne with a.o. autoclave, filament winding and resin infusion equipment.
  Presentations on health monitoring by optical fibres, process control of liquid composite moulding with di-electric sensors, selective reinforcement for primary aircraft structures, modeling of draping and permeability for RTM and on recent developments in thermoplastic injection moulding.
• November 9, 2005, at KU Leuven ( http://www.mtm.kuleuven.be/Research/C2/poly/index.htm ), Leuven, Belgium:
  Visit to the KU Leuven laborities for processing of thermoset (see e.g. picture of prepregger on this page) and thermoplastic composites; visit to spinoff company Econcore which develops economic production processes for honeycomb cores and sandwich panels
  Seminar on “New Developments in Continuous Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites” organized jointly with the Technological Advisory Service for Composites (http://www.mtm.kuleuven.be/Research/C2/poly/services/tad.html ). Presentations on damage detection by optical fibres for continuous length thermoplastic composite pipes, on the development of All-Polypropylene composite suitcases, on continuously manufactured thermoplastic honeycombs, on forming and welding of Cetex thermoplastic composite sheets, on winding of thermoplastic composite pressure vessels and on the development of thermoplastic composite fibre placement.

  
  KU Leuven visit: lab tour passes by at prepregging machine

• May 24, 2005, at the “European Space Research and Technology Centre” of ESA (http://www.esa.int/ ), Noordwijk, the Netherlands:
  Visit to the facilities for mechanical, thermal and electromagnetic testing at satellite level and to the specialized materials testing labs. See picture hereby of the Automatic Transfer Vehicle in the EMC test rooms.
  Presentations on materials selection and testing for space applications (e.g. outgassing, contamination, thermo-optical properties, exposure to atomic oxygen, ...), joining methods for heat resistant ODS materials, impact from low to high speed

  
  ESTEC visit: ATV inside the EMC test facility (picture courtesy of ESA)

• June 24th, 1999, at Owens Corning Battice, Belgium:
  Plant and lab tour
  Papers on S-2 Glass, honeycombs, long fiber thermoplastics, textile technologies. ...
• December 19, 2000, at Dutch Space, Leiden, the Netherlands:
  Visit of the clean rooms (flatpack solar array)
  Paper on solar panels production, Glare (fiber metal laminates), friction stir welding technique, ...
• November 14, 2001, at SABCA Limburg, Lummen, Belgium:
  Visit of the SABCA facility (Milacron tape laying machine)
  Papers on new honeycomb production technology, patch repairs, wind turbine blades and RTM.

  
  Picture from the meeting at SABCA Limburg

• March 6, 2002, at Stork Fokker Special Products, Hoogeveen, the Netherlands:
  Visit of the Stork Fokker SP facilities
  Papers about the development of wing fixed leading edge of thermoplastic composite material, Advantex glass, Multimat, a glas reinforcement for RTM and micro cracking in PPS laminates
• October 29, 2002, at Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium:
  Visit to the laboratories of University of Ghent and to the travelling Composites-on-Tour exhibition (in a full-composite trailer)
  Papers about fatigue modelling, optical fibre strain monitoring, Dyneema® fibres for anti-ballistic applications, the full-composite Composittrailer®, and bonding of radome systems.
• June 5, 2003, at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands:
  Visit to the Structures and Materials Laboratory of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering: demonstrations on thermoplastic composite forming, filament winding, and vacuum infusion.
  Papers on resin infusion, thermoplastic composites for primary aircraft structures, fibre metal laminates, flow in fibrous performs and liquid moulding with thermoplastics.
• November 21, 2003, at CRIF Seraing, Belgium:
  Visit to the facilities with demonstrations of several rapid prototyping, tooling and manufacturing techniques
  Presentations on electron beam processing, reactive processing of thermoplastic composites, thermoplastic filament winding, the Green FRP label and European Composite Recycling Concept
• April 29, 2004, at Stork Fokker, Papendrecht, the Netherlands:
  Visit to Glare material manufacturing line and A380 upper fuselage panel manufacturing line, assembly lines, bonding shop, ...
  Presentations on Glare technology, processing difficulties with prepregs, causes of porosity in prepreg composites, automated and single-step assembly techniques and welding technology for CFRP composites.
• October 21, 2004, at SONACA, Gosselies, Belgium:
  Visit to structural testing laboratory, assembly lines for leading edge slats and fuselages, sandwich panel bonding shop, ...
  Presentations on thermoplastic composites development and injection moulded high-performance thermoplastics, new Glare developments and modelling software for textile composites.

The SAMPE Benelux activities are managed by a group of volunteers from Industry and Academia (see addresses at the end of the page). On top of the above mentioned activities, SAMPE Benelux takes also care of the link with SAMPE International organization.

Student seminar of SAMPE Benelux

The SAMPE Benelux student seminar is organised once a year as a two-day event, mingling the seminars with social activities. Finalising master and mid-way Ph.D. students are invited to present their work to colleagues. Through the student seminar, a new generation of engineers gets introduced to the SAMPE organisation. At the SAMPE Benelux student meeting, 2 students are selected for participation to the International SAMPE students’ conference that takes place each year in Paris, just prior the SAMPE Europe International Conference and the JEC.

Group picture of SAMPE Benelux student seminar, January 2003, KU Leuven, Belgium

The last SAMPE Benelux student seminar took place at the Putse Hoeve ( http://www.deputsehoeve.nl ), near Eindhoven on 07 January 2008. At this pleasant location, students of Benelux universities presented their research work, exchanged ideas and visions and got to know each other, and SAMPE. A visit to 3B (formerly Owens Corning) in Battice, specialized in research and production of glass fibre reinforcements ( http://www.3b-fibreglass.com/about.htm ) was included in the seminar. The young engineering company Taniq (http://www.taniq.com/ ) delivered this years keynote speach. This year’s event was sponsored by: Ten Cate Advanced Composites (http://www.tencate.com ), Stork Fokker AESP ( http://www.stork.com ) and KVE Composites Group (http://www.kve.nl ).

To know more on the next student seminar contact student coordinator Richard Loendersloot (see data below).

Membership

The SAMPE Benelux organization welcomes new members from academia and industry. The membership fee is 80 EURO, this fee includes the subscription to the bimonthly SAMPE Journal. The subscription to the "Journal of Advanced Materials" is only 30 EURO Extra. Students can benefit from a lower fee of 20 EURO which includes also the subscription to the SAMPE Journal. To subscribe, please go to membership section on: http://www.sampe-europe.org.

Contacts:

Name	SAMPE Function	Company	Email
Bart Vangrimde	Chairman and National Delegate	SONACA	bart.vangrimde@sonaca.com
Tel.: +32 71 25 51 27		Fax.: +32 71 25 56 60
Ariean J. Koelewijn	1st Vice Chairman	Ten Cate Adv Comp	ariean@worldonline.nl
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.
Luc Peters	Past Chairman	Owens Corning	luc.peters@owenscorning.com
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.
Peter Joosse	Secretary	CTC	p.joosse@ctcgroup.nl
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.
Adrie Kwakernaak	Treasurer	TU Delft	a.kwakernaak@lr.tudelft.nl
+31 15 278 5353		+31 297 32 32 21
Aart Willem Van Vuure	University Contacts	Sirris/KU Leuven	AartWillem.VanVuure@mtm.kuleuven.be
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.
Richard Loendersloot	Student Co-ordinator	Reden/U Twente	sampe@loendersloot.nl
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.
Jean-Pierre Botman/Patrick Frères	Tbd	Euro-composites	botman@euro-composites.com
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.
Wim Van Paepegem	Tbd	U Gent	wim.vanpaepegem@ugent.be
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.
Marcus Kremers	Tbd	Airborne Composites	m.kremers@airborne.nl
Tel.: N.A.		Fax.: N.A.