Versarien Share Discussion Threads

[sandbag] 01/3/2017 16:12

Back in the seventies helicopter pilots in Nigeria used to put scotch tape on the leading edges of their blades to prevent damage from heavy rain during the wet season. I don't know what the blades are made of now but there's obviously a potential for damage protection as well as ice by using graphene.

Off topic:
Memories of a 1hr flight in a G2 where the tape had come off one blade and put the whole thing out of balance. It was like riding a horse and the pilot and I were both saddle sore for a couple of days. LOL!

[shavian] 01/3/2017 15:44

Wow. Graphene coating on the leading edge of aerofoils as a static de-icer. A boon for light aircraft and helis. As an old aviator why didn't I think of that? :0(

[jointer13] 01/3/2017 11:45

spike...fully agree

it was more the helicopter blade that was interesting

[spike_1] 01/3/2017 11:35

joiner: here is an earlier article to which your link refers:



As you can see the agreement between VRS and CT was announced in June last year, which means it is now considerably more advanced, than your article indicates.

From the article last June:
CT Engineering's position as a first tier supplier to Airbus Group specializing in advanced composite research & design and Versarien's protected graphene technology, will rapidly move this venture forward and produce a range of innovative products that will disrupt the current aerospace component market.

Best wishes - Mike

[jointer13] 01/3/2017 10:52

interesting

" Recent examples of progress made in this field include a graphene-based UAV made by UK collaboration, a graphene-enabled composite with potential uses in the automotive and aerospace industries, a collaboration between Versarien and the Spain-based CT Engineering to develop graphene-enhanced composite components for the aerospace industry, a novel coating of graphene nanoribbons in epoxy, that was proven effective at melting ice on a helicopter blade and more"

[superg1] 01/3/2017 09:05

Lucky

Hopefully the chancers will be off before any potential article appears.

The less info they get the better.

[superg1] 01/3/2017 08:35

Talking of printing.

Carbon fibre GNP enhanced printing heads mean a 2 man removal process rather than a crane on industrial systems.

For inkjets a graphene enhanced composite has less friction than current print heads.

VRS are working with Absolute engineering on that.

Established in 2000, Absolute have since gained a formidable reputation as the world’s premier supplier of woven carbon fiber-chambered doctor blade systems to the flexo industry.
Today, 5,000 installations later, we continue leading the field with unique solutions, tailored to your needs.
Our UK facility incorporates all processes of equipment - from market research and design to manufacture and customer care.

[superg1] 01/3/2017 08:17

Dr A

re

'I expect that you are right about this being too expensive at the moment.'

That may be because people look at the price of £400 per gram which is for research levels. What most don't know is the production costs.


SN

re

Regarding ink, sounds good, but it also sounded good in the 2-year old presentation


Which presentation.

The breakthrough by Cambridge to go to commercial print levels is recent. it's ready to go I heard and Serratia's detailed analysis of the scientific paper supports that.

As said before I spoke to VRS about why not NGI/UOM ink. If you look at the NGI method, post print it has to be compressed to get the right resistance. It was also said the NGI/UOM said that Cambridge is years ahead of them on graphene ink. As VRS are in the UOM/NGI via 2D-tech then they know what they are talking about.

So what Cambridge/VRS have is a ready to go water based graphene ink with it's own GNP production system that can work on existing printing presses at 100 meters per minute.

That's more than graphene ink breakthrough as it ticks a whole load of boxes in one hit. Not just commercial scale but no need to change a thing.

[shavian] 01/3/2017 07:59

Dyson buys Hullavington airfield (M4 J17) to create new tech park, stating that one focus will be on battery technology. Britain's Elon Musk?

Lots of scope for graphene applications!

[supernumerary] 01/3/2017 00:32

A bigger challenge than F1! Rather you than me ;¬)

Yes I was surprised by the concern about the shaft, but I think that quote was from last year, so presumably they've sorted it by now. But the oil starvation (if that's what it really was) you'd have thought they could simulate their way round. I'm actually a bit surprised they don't have some sort of centrifuge to create G-forces on a running engine - they should get down their nearest theme park!

I bow to your superior knowledge on the chassis, but I remember when they introduced CF it was regarded as quite a challenge to get it to deform safely. I'm still not sure where graphene is and is not allowed. F1's a great business if you want to start small and stay that way.

Regarding ink, sounds good, but it also sounded good in the 2-year old presentation...

[dr andrewd] 01/3/2017 00:15

Ex F1 - I left for a bigger challenge before the current spec of KERS was in the cars, but involved in most aspects of the cars. I am not fully up to date on all of today's regulations though.

A long shaft through the middle of the engine spinning at 125,000 rpm with masses on both ends will almost certainly create some headaches, but one than should be possible to sort out on the engine dyno at the factory.

Getting the oil system to work correctly can however be very tricky as simulation of the g forces from cornering etc is very difficult to do at the factory. Any oil starvation for the engine will kill it quickly. Perhaps the two are related, who knows.

In terms of when graphene would be used, carbon fibre is very good in tension, but relatively poor in compression or shear, the same properties that graphene nano platelets (GNPs) help with by improving the plastic that sticks the carbon fibres together.

SN - The main chassis would benefit from GNPs as it would be stiffer. If it was too strong, you would reduce the amount of material to reduce weight, reduce the centre of gravity height of the car giving the required strength resulting in a faster car. I expect that you are right about this being too expensive at the moment.

The crash structure is also likely to benefit, as the car can be decelerated at the same rate with less material.

The suspension parts are often under compression, so one area than could benefit a lot. Certainly an area than was difficult to make work several years ago.

Obviously graphene could be used in many places in the car for things like better battery cells, lighter wiring and electronics, the first application needs to be relatively cost effective with a good advantage and probably manageable to implement in the first instance.

Anyway, F1 teams can afford to add a £100k or so of graphene to the cars and hopefully VRS will make a good few quid from supplying the material, but that is unlikely to make VRS multi millions. That will come from wider applications. Printing is interesting as time to market could be quick. The potential is huge elsewhere and as VRS appear to be able to manufacture good quality material, hopefully it will be possible for lots of VRS customers to explore different applications which will result in some getting to market quickly.

[luckyorange] 28/2/2017 19:46

And over on the other side!

Today 18:24 luckyburgundy Same here 17.875 No Opinion
Tried a few times this afternoon would would not close out ?
Today 17:30 Hoodwinker Non settled 17.875 No Opinion
Anybody tried selling what they've bought over last 2 weeks? Give it a try, me and 2 other holders are getting unable to sell due to settlement issues , all with TD, appreciate if a dummy sell order tonight could confirm either way, cheers



What's that all about then?

[superg1] 28/2/2017 17:32

There is plenty of chat on the web about graphene potential in the chassis of cars. A Polish super car mentions it. But closer to home and perhaps more relevant.

[superg1] 28/2/2017 17:23

Dr AndrewD posted earlier and is highly skilled in that area.

As for graphene in carbon fibre and the various parts, it changes significantly on loadings and I have no idea which level if any is suitable for chassis.

[superg1] 28/2/2017 16:49

A strange end to the day an LSE bid came on at 18p in the auction for 20k but no takers from those on the offer.

[supernumerary] 28/2/2017 16:41

hg - surely you mean another motoring correspondent?

handygandhi24 Feb '17 - 11:38 - 2195 of 2258 0 0


sg - it's interesting technology. Is Dr AD an F1 man? I can see lots of uses for graphene in F1, but not in chassis about which there's been much speculation - too expensive, and possibly too strong - it's hard to engineer crumple zones in a material as stiff as graphene infused CF. Suspension maybe, some housings, heat shielding etc

[superg1] 28/2/2017 16:29

One for Dr Andrew D there SN.

[handygandhi] 28/2/2017 15:08

Nice to see that we've attracted a motoring correspondent.

[supernumerary] 28/2/2017 12:29

As noted earlier, McLaren has a sponsor problem - they don't have one! If Honda don't fix the engine, they won't get one either, then it's the downward spiral, because the new McLaren bosses won't have the same dedication to F1 as Ron Dennis had.

BBC comment on the Honda problems shows where extraordinary materials like graphene are needed - it would be interesting to know what that shaft is made of...

'More trouble for McLaren-Honda has arrived in the shape of a loss of power and subsequent engine change. Honda has fundamentally revised the architecture of the engine this year and although F1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa has not fully confirmed the layout, sources have told BBC Sport that they have copied Mercedes’ split-turbine philosophy.

This puts the two parts of the turbocharger - the compressor and turbine - at opposite ends of the engine vee, joined by a shaft on which sits the MGU-H, the unit that recovers energy from that part of the engine. The main engineering difficultly of this is controlling reliability on such a long shaft spinning at up to 125,000rpm.

It was already known last summer that Honda were planning this and I spoke to Hasegawa about it then.

“Splitting turbine is not to make the turbine bigger,” he said. “It makes the centre of gravity lower, mainly. That is the only advantage. But it is a very big advantage. The MGU-H is more than 25kg and it is very high up. So it will give us huge benefit, even if the turbine is the same size.”

He admitted his concerns then about the turbine shaft. “Very difficult,” he said. “The turbine is rotating more than 100,000rpm. The limit is 125,000. It has huge mass for the turbine and compressor. It is very hard to realise. That’s why Ferrari and Renault doesn’t create that. So that’s why I can’t tell if we can realise that.”

We don’t know if that is the problem with the Honda engine, but it gives a sense of the scale of the challenge facing them.'

[superg1] 28/2/2017 08:15

AndrewD Re F1

Lucky found rules where it states it can't be cost prohibitive which is clearly not based on your comments (100's of 1000's spent on saving a kg).

The BAC car talked of the weight saving using graphene. The options are greater strength or equal or some greater strength with reduced weight.

It also said that new things can be introduced and then they are assessed at the end of the season to see if it's available and acceptable addition.

So come next season we may find graphene listed in the regs somewhere. If such use is giving an advantage then Mclaren are not going to be shouting about that.

Boullier made very clear comments and the Mclaren bosses have been very clear on their enthusiasm about the gains when used with carbon fibre.

Boullier said the heat dissipation gain on the coating was just a little gain, but those little bits and fractions of changes are what F1 is about.

Graphene does increase thermal conductivity when used in composites but I don't recall reading about thermal gains re carbon fibre. I'd have to look that up and will. As it's in the resin it seems inevitable that heat dissipation would be improved.

[superg1] 28/2/2017 08:05

Dr Andrew

I assume it could be automated but can up can go 4 fold for the same staff numbers. I imagine there is a scale above that too which again would require the same staff.

On the top quality point of under 5 layer average, for small research amounts it has been £400 per gram, but if you are going over 1 kg then I imagine it's more like £100 per gram. I believe the cost is high due to lack of quality product around.

Re the 54,000 tonnes per year. No one is doing a 100 kg yet of few layer let alone 54,000.

Many articles go on about commercial scale not being viable. It is they just don't know about VRS. On the amount suggested it all depends on the required cost per gram re viability for particular use.

[dr andrewd] 27/2/2017 21:09

A couple of questions and points to follow up.

1. Are F1 teams likely to use graphene in the KERS?
Quite possible. There are quite a few comments on here about graphene in batteries, so that is one potential area of use. Also the electric turbo runs pretty hot, so there could be potential there to protect other components with graphene. Anything that allows the components to run at higher temperature gives an advantage as less cooling air is required which means less aerodynamic drag and the car goes faster in a straight line. Likewise, if the body work can be put closer to the engine etc due to coatings then drag is reduced. Historically teams used gold leaf to protect bodywork, perhaps graphene is better?

2. SG1 - I have seen Eric's comments - it would be good to know where exactly graphene is used. Will see if I can find any clues.

3. SG1 - sounds reasonable that £25k per 100 grams would be only for top quality few layer material at the moment. Good margins to be made due to the law of supply and demand. Your comments on scaling up are interesting, particularly if the modules can be automated to minimise labour costs. Remember, if the comments on demand in 2024 are correct, 54,000 tonnes is 54,000,000,000 grams. I have no idea on long term price, but £1/ gram sales price would make things very interesting, although I suspect to get it in every coke bottle etc it may need to go slightly lower than that.

[superg1] 27/2/2017 17:54

The KLF it won't be few layer that's for sure. 1 tonne at a 2% loading would be 20 kgs of it at £8 million per tonne at research level rates and bulk about £2 million per tonne. That's expensive concrete :-)

[theklf] 27/2/2017 17:19

There is already an Australian company adding it to concrete. $500m market cap last time I looked.

[superg1] 27/2/2017 15:59

Spike

They use BS a lot.

I does sound like Trotter and co. Used in shower trays and in leather to make it more waterproof.

It sounds like set up kidding folk with graphite. They have adding it into concrete as an option.

Scrub that one.