Advanced Flexible Composites, Inc. history

The first commercial use of Bakelite was to make gearshift knobs in 1917 for Rolls Royce automobiles.

Unsaturated polyester resins were patented in 1936 by Carleton Ellis.

P.Castan in Switzerland received the first patent for epoxy resins in 1938, and soon licensed the patent to Ciba.

In Europe, Balzaretti Modigliani in Italy obtained the rights to the Owens patents, and transferred them to Saint-Gobain in 1939.

In 1942 the first fiberglass laminates made from PPG CR-38 and CR-39 resins were produced.

At the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1943, exploratory projects were launched to build structural aircraft parts from composite materials.

The Allied forces landing at Normandy in 1944 arrived in ships made of GFRP components.

By 1945, over seven million pounds of fiberglass were used, primarily for military applications.

Fiberglass pipe, for instance, was first introduced in 1948 for what has become one of its widest areas of use within the corrosion market, the oil industry.

In 1956 Cincinnati Developmental laboratories added asbestos fiber to a phenolic resin for use as a possible re-entry nosecone material.

The major world event was the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in 1957 and the space race that it prompted.

Figure 22 shows Air Force Brigadier General Shreaver presenting the first and only recovered re-entry vehicle to the Smithsonian Institute in May 1959.

Filament winding became the basis for the large-scale rocket motors that propelled exploration of space in the 1960’s and beyond.

Although the first carbon fiber was patented in 1961, it took several more years for carbon fiber composites to become commercially available.

In 1963, David Schuster reported the magnitude and distribution of thermal stresses around alumina whiskers3 after having grown and harvested the crystals.

In 1966, Stephanie Kwolek, a DuPont chemist, invented Kevlar, a para-aramid fiber that is strong enough to be used in advanced composites; Kevlar is best known for its use in ballistic and stab-resistant body armor.

In 1969 boron-epoxy rudders were installed on an F-4 jet made by General Dynamics.

By 1970, the Cortland Line Company became a major supplier of graphite rods for fly fishing as well as graphite-reinforced fly reels.

Yajima's development of Nicalon™ SiC fibers in 1976 was thus a major step.

The 1990’s saw the first all-composites pedestrian bridge installed in Aberfeldy, Scotland; the first FRP reinforced concrete bridge deck built in McKinleyville, West Virginia; and the first all-composites vehicular bridge deck in Russell, Kansas.

In 2014, MarkForged announced the world’s first carbon fiber 3-D printer.