Archived Sports and Leisure Sector News - 2008

Editors - please refer to the Notes to Editors for background information on Umeco plc and its operating divisions.

Materials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Olympic and Track Meeting Bike Successes

Ice man Takes to the Slopes on ACG Prepreg

A Cut Above the Rest - ACG's MTM57 Aesthetically Applied to Stämpfli's Skiff

Reliable Performance For Snowboard Experts

Compositech now Applying Expertise to Personal Water Craft for Jet-ski Hulls

Carbon Prepregs In Winning MX2 Bike

Materials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - October 2008

Materials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Olympic and Track Meeting Bike Successes - May 2008

GB Cycling Team Win Gold Medals - aided by Bikes Engineered with ACG Technology and equipment manufactured by Advanced Composite Engineering using the Group's MTM® prepreg.

Advanced Composites Group Ltd. (ACG), part of the Composites Division of Umeco plc, is pleased to have played its part in the GB cycling team's success at the 2008 UCI World Track Cycling World Championships, in Manchester, UK, where a number of its nine gold medals can be attributed, in part, to bikes manufactured from ACG's pre-impregnated (prepreg) composite carbon fibre materials.

Several of the Great Britain Cycling Team's stealthy black carbon fibre machines are constructed exclusively from ACG's MTM® prepreg materials and manufactured in the Group's engineering facility Advanced Composite Engineering (ACE). Each component of every bike has been hand-crafted to extremely tight engineering tolerances so that the riders can give their best, knowing that their bikes will not let them down.

For strength and lightness, composite carbon fibre offers the highest performance material for these Olympic, world-beating bikes. They have been expertly designed to reduce the drag co-efficient, achieving optimum performance. Everything on the bike, including the frame and the handlebars, has been fine-tuned to improve the aerodynamics and clinch that essential millisecond advantage over the competition.

However, it is not all down to the bikes, the GB, Olympic-standard riders, top class athletes in their own right, take much of the credit for their own remarkable attitude and ability, making the impossible possible - a philosophy that is synonymous with ACG's approach to the product of our tomorrows.

The five day event illustrated the quality of the British team in terms of determination, stamina, style and expertise, with medals coming fast and furious on a near-daily basis.

On nine occasions, the crowd raised the roof as the GB cycling heroes stepped up onto the podium to claim gold medals at Manchester's velodrome. Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins and Victoria Pendleton returned as conquering heroes, but perhaps more importantly, a new generation of riders, namely: Ross Edgar, Mark Cavendish, Shanaze Reade, Jo Rowsell and Rebecca Romero, also tasted championship glory. Surely, this is an indication of the real depth of British Cycling's prowess.

Notably, Chris Hoy enjoyed perhaps his finest win of a stellar career by claiming the world sprint title, completing the full set of sprint titles in his career. In the Women's 3000m Team Pursuit, the gold medal final saw a rampant British team complete a clean sweep of all four titles with an emphatic win over a brave Ukraine team.

ACG is no stranger to the sports and leisure market and, in particular, the manufacture of championship standard, world-beating racing bikes. ACG followed Great Britain's Cycling Team's successes in the 1992 Summer Olympics by designing and building racing bikes for the 2004 British Olympic Team, which won gold, silver and bronze medals at the Olympics in Athens, Greece, after which they continued to succeed at many other Championships.

ACG offers its congratulations to the champions of Manchester and wish them well for Beijing where, once again, they will ride bikes made using ACG materials.

Images courtesy and copyright of British Cycling (www.britishcycling.org.uk).

For further details contact ACG Sales Department.

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Iceman Takes to the Slopes on ACG Prepreg - April 2007

Through a small mistake that cost him fractions of a second, Kristan Bromley, nicknamed ‘Dr. Ice’ because he owns the company ‘Bromley Ice & Snow Sport Technologies’ and has a PhD, came 5th in the bob skeleton at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Happy to be in the top 10? No, not at all; Kristan, the British and European number one, wants to be up there in the medals, preferably taking the Gold! Perhaps black carbon will lead him to that elusive medal! Who knows?

The answer: Bromley, who has a PhD in engineering and a degree in design, materials and manufacturing, contacted B3 Technologies Ltd because he wanted to investigate the use of carbon fibre for the structure of the pan on which the rider lies. He also wanted to explore the potential for reducing drag using the sophisticated Computational Fluid Dynamics facilities at Sheffield-Hallam University in the UK.

One vital element in the equation that Bromley conveyed to B3 Technologies was regarding the structural characteristics of the sled. Current rules of the sport outlawed any damping or suspension systems, leaving the steel chassis of the sled as the only part that could absorb shocks. The composite pan needed careful design to ensure that key chassis properties were unaffected.

The hands-on approach by B3 Technologies started with the manufacture of a mould using an epoxy-based tooling block, with ACG’s MTM®28 carbon fibre prepreg applied and autoclave cured. Several lay-ups, featuring different fabric configurations, led to the formulation of the requisite end product.

The exact specification of the tray is kept ‘top secret’ to maintain the advantage in future competitions for the Bromley Pro Ice Team, the company’s ‘Formula One’ style works team initiative. Revealing only non-critical elements of the design, the sled pan incorporated subtle design features that allowed the sled frame some extra compliance to improve clearance tolerances and reduce pan fatigue.

Accepted by the governing body (FIBT) as being within current Olympic regulations, but likely to receive further scrutiny in the future, the build went to plan, several designs were tested, with both parties planning further development work in the future.

ACG materials remain a vital part of many market sectors and continue to open up new possibilities for those in pursuit of excellence. Flexibility is at the heart of ACG’s continuous materials development programme and putting the customer first is all part of the Group’s philosophy.

For further details contact ACG Sales Department.

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A Cut Above the Rest - ACG's MTM®57 Aesthetically Applied to Stämpfli's Skiff - April 2007

These, the essential prerequisites of a superior competition skiff, are realized by the application of ACG’s MTM®57 prepreg, that is expertly sculptured as a honeycomb sandwich construction in a female mould. Autoclave cured, the shell and cockpit are formed in separate single shots, with both parts being bonded during the final construction process.

ACG’s MTM®57 epoxy matrix resin provides a combination of low tack for optimized handling and high-flow and wet-out, all of which speed up the manufacturing process. It also develops excellent Tg and valuable impact performance.

With the composite carbon elements of the 7.95m skiff weighing in at a meager 7.7kg, this light-weight boat certainly boasts character, style, distinction and, essentially, has medal-winning pace.

Stämpfli’s skiffs, which are made to their own exclusive shapes by HS Composite in Horw (Switzerland), are supplied with a carbon wing rigger as opposed to standard aluminium tube out-riggers. These skiffs, which have now been in production for over four years now, have been widely used by top internationals at the last two World Championships, with more than ten crews winning medals in each year. Founded in 1896 by Johann Friedrich August Stampfli as ‘Stämpfli Racing Boats‘, the first boat was made in a workshop on the banks of Lake Wollishofen, Zurich, Switzerland. However, renamed as Stämpfli International in 1991, production of the composite boats moved to the UK in 1993, with the first prepreg composite carbon fibre wing rigger being developed and added in 1998.

For further details contact ACG Sales Department.

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Reliable Performance For Snowboard Experts - March 2006

In the FIS Snowboard World Cup many riders use Oxess Snowboards for Alpine and Boardercross competitions with great success. Also, many snowboard instructors and experts rely on these high quality products, both for Carving or Freeriding.

For over 7 years these extremely durable, well-balanced snowboards have been manufactured using ACG's LTM®23 glass and carbon fibre prepreg materials. Their low temperature curing characteristics and clean and simple lay up procedures ensure that manufacturing time and costs are reduced to an absolute minimum.

Initially, cutting the prepreg into tailored sections for lay up reduces material waste and makes the construction time efficient. Then, the LTM®23 is cured in-autoclave providing an excellent bond to selected core materials and a strong and outstandingly tough final laminate - with a superb finish.

For a world class snowboarder such as Gilles Jacquet of the Oxess team, who is also a member of the Swiss National Team and is a 2 times world champion, the superb performance is all that matters, allowing their innovative moves to outshine their competition. For Oxess the reliability of ACG materials allows them to lead the field with an excellent product.

For further details contact ACG Sales Department.

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Compositech now Applying Expertise to Personal Water Craft for Jet-Ski Hulls - March 2006

French company Compositech, which is experienced in manufacturing composite parts for high performance automobiles and industrial applications, is now applying its expertise to personal water craft for jet-ski hulls.

Compositech has achieved dramatic reductions in the weight of their latest jet-ski hull design by the use of ACG's LTM® and VTM® composite prepreg materials. Curing at temperatures as low as 40°C, ACG's materials are clean and simple to lay-up, allow for greater freedom of design and ultimately create lightweight structures of great strength and stability.

By their innovative use of Formula One manufacturing methods and carbon composite materials Compositech has designed and built a hull that is almost 50% less than their previous 56kg design. This dramatic weight saving has allowed an equally dramatic improvement in performance as demonstrated by their world renowned pilots Pierre Maixent and Gil Beurnier. They praise its performance characteristics while acknowledging that some time is required to adapt to its lightness and precise manoeuvrability which make it ideal for the regular freestyle competitor.

The use of carbon composite materials has allowed the Compositech design to achieve a more streamlined shape to the top of the hull, the premier modification being that the dashboard is an integral part of the carbon structure, improving the visibility and control of the jet-ski.

For further details contact ACG Sales Department.

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Carbon Prepregs in Winning MX2 Bike - March 2006

The Yamaha MX2 Champion Antonio Cairoli is only 20 years old but has soon cut a swathe through the competition in just 2 full seasons of GP racing. He has shown remarkable skill in riding on soft soil and in adapting to the many different types of soil which, added to his natural ability and dedicated training, has resulted in a well earned Motocross World Championship title in 2005.

The high adrenalin sport of MX2 has its share of problems for the riders and Cairoli, like many others, battled with injuries both at the start and the end of the season. However, his strength and determination saw him through to become the youngest ever Italian to become Motocross World Champion. The Yamaha De Carli team have provided Cairoli the opportunity to train with some of the quickest riders in the world with the back up of experience and support from Claudio Federici and Claudio De Carli.

The Yamaha YZ250F ridden by Cairoli and built by CRM Compositi Products at Livorno, Italy incorporates carbon fibre materials on parts such as the structural rear subframe airbox and the gas tank.

ACG's LTM200 series prepreg is used to manufacture the robust moulds and its MTM®57 carbon fibre prepreg is used for the components. The simple lay up processes utilised with prepreg materials enable the most effective use of materials and time, even when large quantities of components are required.

For further details contact ACG Sales Department.

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