Join us for the 2025 SAMPE Boston Materials & Innovation Night and Student Career Fair, which will be held on Tuesday, March 18th, 2025. The event will bring together suppliers, customers, industry experts, and young professionals from the composites industry. Professionals and innovators throughout the Northeast and from across the composites industry will gather for the event, which will set the stage on the latest trends and future breakthroughs in composite materials and processes.

The event will be held at The Establishment Restaurant, 75 Princeton Street, Chelmsford, MA. Come learn about the latest technologies from suppliers of advanced materials and processing technologies. There will be a light buffet supper with a cash bar. Attendance is free. The exhibits and student posters will open at 5:00, and dinner will begin at 6:00.

In addition to the exhibits and materials & processing technologies exhibited, the event will also include SAMPE chapter students who will present posters illustrating their cutting-edge research & development activities. The student posters & research activities will be reviewed by our members and judged by our sponsors. Cash prizes will be provided to the best posters/research.

The cost to exhibit at the Materials & Innovation Night is $650.00. Diamond and Gold Level Sponsors exhibit are free and Silver Level Sponsors receive a 50% discount.

The SAMPE Boston Chapter wishes to express their gratitude to its 2025 Sponsors who have helped to make this event possible. The current 2025 Sponsors include:

Diamond Level:

• Boston Materials, Inc.

• Textron Systems Corp.

Gold Level:

• AvCarb

• Concordia Fibers

• Gallagher Custom Machines & Automation

• Physical Sciences, Inc.

• Northern Composites / Krayden

• Revolution Composites

• Sika Corporation USA

• Specialty Materials, Inc.

Bronze Level:

• Barrday Composite Solutions

• Tri-Mack Plastics Mfg., Corp

If your company/organization is interested in supporting our industry, its leading technical society, and its students, please reach out to anyone on the leadership team to help you get started on sponsoring the SAMPE Boston Chapter. Also, if you or your HR department are interested in finding and supporting the next group of talented student materials & process engineers and research scientists, please consider a Diamond sponsorship for 2025!

We are excited about this event and will start to introduce our summer and fall event line-up shortly. Please keep on the look-out as we plan to have several exciting, events, presentations/tours and get togethers planned for the second half of 2025.

As the world continues to focus on light weighting, urban air mobility, and sustainability, advanced materials and processes are leading the charge. The outlook for advanced materials is bright and your SAMPE Technical Society is working hard to grow and expand the industry and support its student and professional members career growth and networking.

SAMPE Boston Leadership Team:

Michael Novak – Chair (mnovak@aijsearch.com)

Tim Shaughnessy – Treasurer (tim@rapidcuretechnologies.com)

Claire Steggall-Murphy – Secretary (csteggallmurphy@victrex.com)

Pat Mack – Webmaster (patmack@gehringtextiles.com)

Gary Sharpless – Sponsorships Coordinator (garysharpless@comcast.net)

Rich Caruso – Board Member (rpcaruso@gmail.com)

Mike Buck – Board Member/Student Liaison (mbuck111@outlook.com)

Davide Masato – Univ. of Massachusetts Lowell Faculty Advisor (Davide_Masato@uml.edu)

Mike Favaloro – At Large (mfavaloro@textronsystems.com)

Chris Robertson – At Large (christopher.robertson@avcarb.com)

Dave Hauber – At Large (dhauber137@gmail.com)

The SAMPE Boston Chapter is pleased to announce our next meeting & event. The meeting will be held at AvCarb Material Solutions (https://www.avcarb.com/), at 2 Industrial Avenue, Lowell, MA 01851 on February 4, 2025.

The meeting will begin at 6:00 PM with a brief introduction from Michael Novak, Chair of SAMPE’s Boston Chapter highlighting the chapter’s current plans for meeting & events in 2025, including our planned Materials & Innovation Night and Student Career Fair, scheduled for March 18th.

At 6:15 AvCarb will present on the company’s materials and processing capabilities for fuel cells, electrolyzers, flow batteries, friction applications, and high temperature processing. A dinner will be served which will be sponsored by AvCarb. After the presentation and dinner, AvCarb will lead a tour of their facilities, highlighting their various processes and materials manufacturing capabilities. The meeting will conclude by 8:30.

There is no cost for the dinner as it is being sponsored by AvCarb. Please RSVP to Michael Buck at mbuck111@outlook.com by January 24th regarding your attendance. In addition to the food, soft drinks will be served.

SAMPE is the leading technical society dedicated to materials and process (M&P) engineering. Our members, and their companies, are leaders in creating light weight, high performance materials and processes. In today’s world where creating products that can fly higher, move faster, tolerate higher temperatures, etc., our engineers & scientists and their respective companies are leading the way to develop next generation, cost effective, materials and process technologies.

Please join us for an evening of networking, learning, and camaraderie. It will be great opportunity to have some fun, talk materials and manufacturing technology, see old friends, and make some new ones! We are looking forward to see you there.

The SAMPE Boston Chapter is pleased to announce our first meeting of the 2024/2025 season. The meeting will be held at the IYRS School of Technology & Trades (https://www.iyrs.edu/), 449 Thames Street, Newport, RI 02840 on September 24, 2024.

IYRS is a premier marine trades and advanced manufacturing school in the United States. IYRS was founded in 1993 as the International Yacht Restoration School on the Newport harbor front. Since that time, IYRS has grown into a world-class learning institution offering four full-time, ACCSC-accredited programs (Boatbuilding & Restoration, Digital Modeling & Fabrication - advanced mfg., Marine Systems, and Composites Technology). IYRS offers education & training programs for people with a passion for thinking and working with their hands. Students include career changers, military/veterans, and young students who may not find conventional college their career choice. Nearly 30% of the students already hold college degrees, but want a hands-on experience. IYRS students go on to careers across a wide range of industries including marine, automotive, aerospace, consumer goods, wind energy, and composites.

Parking will be available in the IYRS parking lot at 449 Thames Street. IYRS will supply a parking pass/QR code when checking in to the event.

The event will begin at 4:00 PM with a tour of the IYRS facilities. The chapter meeting will start at 6:00 PM with dinner & refreshments. We will update the attendees on progress on our plans for the Fall of 2024 and Spring of 2025, as well as solicit input on future meetings, tours, and events.

A presentation from Philip Steggall, Principal of Bravo Lab, in Fall River, MA, will begin at 6:30 PM. Mr. Steggall’s presentation is titled, “Workforce Development: Lessons Learned and Tips for Creating a Successful Composites Manufacturing Team”. The presentation will focus on composite manufacturing and workforce development & training. Bravo Lab is a composites consulting firm that specializes in carbon fiber part manufacturing, technician training, and manufacturing risk assessment. Philip’s own composites experience began through his professional sailing career and has endured for 5 decades.

Dinner/refreshments will be provided starting at 6:00 PM. The cost for the dinner is $25.00, which will include pizza, pasta, salad, & soft drinks. Students will eat for free. Payment can be charged in advance or paid with cash at the door. Please RSVP to Michael Buck at mbuck111@outlook.com by Friday, September 20th regarding your attendance. Dinner payment can be made through eventbrite.

Please join us for an evening of networking, learning, and camaraderie as we continue our work to grow and expand the SAMPE Boston Chapter. It will be great opportunity to have some fun, talk materials and manufacturing technology, see old friends, and make some new ones! We are looking forward to see you there.

The Establishment Restaurant, 75 Princeton St, Chelmsford, MA 01863

The Establishment Restaurant, 75 Princeton St, Chelmsford, MA 01863

A Boston Chapter meeting to be held on Thursday, September 8, 2022, at 5:30 PM at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the Plastics Engineering Department.      

The meeting will be hosted by Davide Masato, Assistant Professor/Plastics Engineering of the University, and held in Ball Hall Room 202B (219 Riverside St, Lowell, MA 01854).  

Parking will be available in the Riverside Lot (307-311 Riverside St, Lowell, MA 01854). From the parking lot, walk back towards University Avenue and you`ll find Ball Hall to your left. Upon arrival, please call Dr. Masato at 857-218-0560 for any questions about parking or room location.   

The meeting will also be available virtually using Dr. Masato’s link: https://uml.zoom.us/j/5923778611. 

This will be an organizational meeting to establish our plans for the coming year and re-establish the Student Chapter at the University. We will also be soliciting officers for the coming year. SAMPE’s new President, Scott Stephenson, will also be in attendance and be updating us on SAMPE’s upcoming plans for events and growth.   

Please confirm your attendance (in-person or virtual) by sending an email to info@sampe.org by Monday, September 5, 2022.  

Please feel free to contact Rich Caruso at rpcaruso@gmail.com or Mike Buck at mbuck111@outlook.com if you have any questions.  

We look forward to seeing many of you at this meeting

TPI Composites and our partners Hexion, Krauss Maffei, and the University of Delaware, have completed the design of an advanced composite driver-side commercial passenger car door. The project goals for this component include a 42.5% weight savings and less than a $5 cost increase for every pound of weight saved in the door. The program includes the development of manufacturing processes, fabrication of tooling and component molding and assembly of multiple doors for demonstration of manufacturing rate, cost and suitability for use in a full-scale automotive application.

These door components will endure the same static and dynamic proof tests, as well as Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) -214 side impact testing, as the existing metallic door to validate equality.

To date, the project team has begun manufacture of prototype parts. The main door components are manufactured using both high pressure resin transfer molding (HP-RTM) and liquid compression molding (LCM). These highly automated process technologies, along with suitable resin formulations, enable composites to support high volume automotive production. It is this automated low-cycle time solution that enable composites to become a viable alternative to metals in high rate automotive manufacturing.

TPI would like to recognize the Vehicle Technologies Office within the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for support of this program

Automated Dynamics, now a part of Trelleborg Group, will sponsor the New England SAMPE meeting on April 19th, 2018. The meeting will include a company overview presentation and a tour of their new advanced composites facility in Niskayuna, NY.

Automated Dynamics has been in operation for over 30 years and was recently acquired by Trelleborg Group. Automated Dynamics is a global leader in automated composite production, specializing in the manufacturing of advanced composite structures and the development of high-performance automation equipment. Through the use of a true out-of-autoclave (OoA) process, Automated Dynamics brings additive manufacturing to continuous-fiber thermoplastic composite parts, saving weight and improving reliability in today’s most demanding engineering environments. Offering patented Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) technologies and innovative composite solutions, Automated Dynamics has produced hundreds of thousands of composite parts for over 500 clients in 17 countries.

A dinner, followed by a technical overview and tour, will be provided at the Automated Dynamics plant at 2 Commerce Park Drive, Niskayuna NY beginning at 5:30 PM on Thursday, April 19th, 2018. The cost of the meeting is $20 for SAMPE members and free for students. Details on registering for the tour will be provided shortly. Mark your calendars.

37 South Hunt Road, Amesbury MA 01913

ARC Technologies of Amesbury MA, www.arc-tech.com, has announced a new family of dielectric controlled polymeric materials for injection molding, thermoforming and composite applications. The material includes formulations with a wide variety of electrical properties. PP6000 is a low dielectric, low-loss thermoplastic compound with good resistance to moisture and most chemicals. It is ideal for applications at 24 GHz and 77 GHz, including radomes for automotive radar, and can be used as an impedance-matching material or as a dielectric spacer. CA5000 is a highly conductive plastic that provides excellent shielding over a wide frequency range. CA5000 has good temperature resistance and corrosion resistance, and is an ideal material for molding electronic covers and enclosures that can benefit from low cost and design flexibility. PP2000 is a magnetic absorber that provides a balance of mechanical and electrical properties It is ideal for surface current reduction, cavity mode suppression, and attenuating near-field emissions from 1 to 18 GHz. WT-ACAG is a carbon-based absorber that is designed for attenuation in the 10+ GHz range. This product is ideal for lossy enclosures and housings and can be used to reduce/eliminate antenna pattern side lobes and improve performance. All the materials are halogen free, RoHs and REACH compliant.

ARC will host the February 23 New England SAMPE meeting at the new ARC facilities, 37 South Hunt Road, Amesbury MA. Dinner will be provided for a cost of $15, followed by a technical presentation of ARC’s family of dielectric materials and composites, and a tour of the new plant. NOTE: Because of the clearance level at the facility, only US citizens with proof of citizenship (passport) will be allowed in the plant.

2 Industrial Road, Lowell, MA 01851

For design engineers seeking material science solutions to meet highly demanding product performance requirements, AvCarb is the premium supplier of engineered carbon for critical friction, thermal, and electrochemical applications that partners with you to truly understand your business, to deliver optimal solutions. AvCarb products include textiles, papers, and parts creatively engineered with carbon and carbon fiber for performance in critical systems.

AvCarb’s state-of-the art facility houses a number of unique engineering and production capabilities, essential to making products of the highest quality.  AvCarb also makes these facilities available for unique customer requirements for toll processing, or new product development. AvCarb uses a wide variety of coating processes to provide functionality to its carbon-based materials.  Dip, slot-die coating (including multilayer), spray, comma bar, reverse roll and meyer rod on multiple production lines are among the typical techniques used at AvCarb.  Converting equipment including slitters, calenders, sheeters, and hot presses, and die-cutters are also in routine operation. AvCarb’s chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process deposits amorphous pyrolytic carbon (PC) onto carbon substrates including carbon fabrics, papers, and tow.  Uniform PC layers may be applied in thicknesses ranging from nanometers to micrometers. AvCarb’s manufacturing methods include batch and continuous processes.

Wind turbine blade testing is a critical factor in maintaining high levels of reliability and evaluating the latest technological developments in airfoils and materials. Adequate testing will allow wind energy to be more competitive. In addition, blade testing is required as part of turbine certification to meet international design standards including IEC, GL, DNV. Meeting international standards allows developers to mitigate the technical and financial risk of deploying mass-produced wind turbines.

Blade Testing At WTTC

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s (MassCEC) Wind Technology Testing Center (WTTC) offers a full suite of certification tests for turbine blades up to 90 meters in length.  WTTC also offers the latest wind turbine blade testing and prototype development methodologies to help the wind industry deploy the next generation of land-based and offshore wind turbine technologies.

WTTC Experience

The WTTC’s principle technical team includes blade engineers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) trained in blade testing at the current test facility in Colorado.  Expertise and personnel from NREL are playing key roles in commissioning and overseeing the operation of the WTTC. NREL has tested numerous blades ranging in size from 9 to 47 meters over the last 15 years. In addition, WTTC/NREL engineers have previous experience testing blades at leading wind turbine design and manufacturing companies.