REINFORCEDplastics 10 www.reinforcedplastics.com

BUSINESS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

Airtech celebrates

40 years AIRTECH ADVANCED Materials

Group will be celebrating its

40th anniversary in 2013.

To commemorate this, the

company has created a custom

logo that will be featured

throughout 2013 and will launch

a new global website.

Airtech, a privately-owned

company, was founded 40 years

ago by William (‘Bill’) Dahlgren,

who started the business with

four people in San Bernardino,

California. His main goal was to

create a ‘one-stop shop’ and

manufacture vacuum bagging

and composite tooling materials

for the reinforced plastics

industry.

The company has grown to over

500 employees, manufacturing in

four diff erent locations – Hunt-

ington Beach/Chino, California

(corporate headquarters); Diff er-

dange, Luxembourg; Rochdale,

England; and Tianjin, China.

Airtech;

www.airtechonline.com

ThyssenKrupp opens carbon

composites centre in Germany

Change in ownership

of Euroresins and BÜFA

Gelcoat PlusDSM COMPOSITE Resins AG and

BÜFA GmbH & Co KG have

announced plans to change the

ownership structure of their joint

ventures Euroresins Europe

Holding and BÜFA Gelcoat Plus.

DSM Composite Resins AG, head-

quartered in Switzerland, and

BÜFA GmbH & Co KG, Germany,

formed the two joint ventures in

2009. One combined the two

companies’ European gel-coats,

bonding pastes, pigment pastes

and fi re retardants businesses.

The other combined DSM'

Euroresins distribution company

with BÜFA's distribution activities.

Now the plan is to split distribu-

tion company Euroresins into two

parts. One will include the

Euroresins companies active in

Benelux, the Nordic area, the UK,

Ireland, France, Spain, Italy and

Turkey, and will be under the

exclusive control of DSM. The

other part, covering the Euroresins

companies active in Germany,

Austria, Switzerland, Poland and

the Baltic states, will be controlled

by BÜFA Gelcoat Plus.

“Our intention is, while maintaining

the business relationships with

BÜFA Gelcoat Plus, to de-complex

the governance and increase the

effi ciency of the Euroresins group,”

explains Wilfrid Gambade, Presi-

dent of DSM Composite Resins.

DSM will also transfer its stake in

BÜFA Gelcoat Plus to BÜFA,

which will consequently come

the under full control of BÜFA

GmbH & Co. KG (Holding).

The closing of the relevant

transactions is expected early

2013, subject to approval by the

relevant authorities.

BÜFA; www.buefa.de

DSM Composite Resins;

www.dsm.com

Euroresins; www.euroresins.

com

STEEL COMPANY ThyssenKrupp

AG has opened a ‘TechCenter

Carbon Composites’ in Dresden.

Over the next three years it

plans to invest in facilities to

design, simulate and produce

carbon fi bre composite parts.

The company, a leader in the

development of high-strength

lightweight steels, says this move

is in line with the global trend

towards lightweight construction.

With the TechCenter Carbon

Composites ThyssenKrupp is

adding a further class of mate-

rials to its capabilities. The focus

will be on developing promising

solutions for weight reduction in

the automotive and other indus-

tries, where areas of application

are opening up for carbon fi bre

reinforced plastics (CFRP) in

multi-material designs in combi-

nation with steel.

The technical centre will develop

projects and ideas to production

readiness. It will bring together

the ThyssenKrupp Group’s capa-

bilities in this area of technology

and support ongoing projects

throughout the Group. It will

also target collaborations with

external partners along the

entire value chain – for example,

the Institute of Lightweight

Engineering and Polymer Tech-

nology at Technische Universität

Dresden.

In the fi scal year 2011/2012

ThyssenKrupp generated sales of

€40 billion. As of September

2012 its operations were organ-

ised in six business areas: Steel

Europe, Materials Services,

Elevator Technology, Plant Tech-

nology, Components Technology,

and Marine Systems. As of

January 2013 the business areas

Plant Technology and Marine

Systems will be merged into a

new Industrial Solutions business

unit.

ThyssenKrupp;

www.thyssenkrupp.com

Embraer’s Portugal facility

ships first composite partAIRCRAFT MANUFACTURER

Embraer has completed the fi rst

shipset in composite material in

its Embraer Compósitos factory

in Évora, Portugal – a Legacy 500

empennage.

This Legacy 500 empennage has

been shipped to Embraer head-

quarters in São José dos

Campos, Brazil. Deliveries of the

Legacy 500, an eight-passenger

business aircraft, are expected to

begin in 2014.

The empennage is made mainly

of carbon fi bre composite parts.

It was assembled in a semi-auto-

matic line in one of two Embraer

plants in Évora, allowing for

higher effi ciency in operations

like drilling and riveting of

primary structures made in

composite.

Embraer announced Évora as the

chosen location for Embraer

Compósitos in 2008. The new

facility was completed in

September 2012, together with

Embraer Metálicas, also in Évora.

Both Embraer Metálicas and

Embraer Compósitos will reach full

production capacity during the

second quarter of 2013.

Embraer;

www.embraer.com

RP0113_business news 10 10-01-13 17:05:10