A resin-rich peel ply that does not leave behind residual fibers after peeling and can work well with different resin-based composite substrates. The resin-rich peel ply is composed of a woven fabric impregnated with a resin matrix different from the resin matrix of the composite substrate. The peel ply is designed such that, upon manual removal of the peel ply from the composite substrate's surface, a thin film of the peel ply resin remains on the composite substrate's surface to create a bondable surface capable of bonding with another composite substrate, but no fibrous material from the woven fabric remains on the same surface.

A welded synthetic floor-covering material which is formed from one or more adjacent pairs of flooring elements wherein each adjacent pair of flooring elements is welded together by a symmetrical lower weld which engages each flooring element substantially equally; and wherein the symmetrical lower weld is substantially free from a metallic element; and a method of preparing a welded synthetic floor-covering material having a layout suitable for covering a pre-determined area wherein the welded synthetic floor-covering material comprises one or more adjacent pairs of flooring elements which have a floor-engaging lower surface and wherein the method comprises the following steps: (a) providing a floor plan for the pre-determined area wherein the floor plan defines a layout of flooring elements including positions of one or more welds; (b) providing a length of flooring and forming a groove on the floor-engaging surface of the flooring at the position of each of the one or more welds; (c) cutting the length of flooring to form the one or more adjacent pairs of flooring elements; and (d) arranging the flooring elements according to the layout and welding together each of the one or more adjacent pairs of flooring elements to form a symmetrical lower weld which engages each flooring element substantially equally such that the welded synthetic floor-covering material is formed.

A method for the sterile connection of pipes, consisting of: providing a first and a second pipe; a separating area of the first and second pipes is heated; both pipes are mechanically separated by exerting traction and/or shear force onto the pipes so that both pipes are respectively separated in the heated separating area; after the pipes are separated, a mechanical contact between the end of the first pipe section of the first pipe formed by the separation of the first pipe is established with the end of the first pipe section of the second pipe, formed by the separation of the second pipe, and mechanical contact is established such that the ends of the pipe sections still have, following heating when they come into mechanical contact with each other, a temperature such that they form a material fit connection without additional heating after separation.

An open-channel stiffener for stiffening a panel has a bonding flange for bonding the stiffener to the panel through a bondline formed between the bonding flange and the panel to form a stiffened panel. The open-channel stiffener has a cross-sectional shape that aligns, or substantially aligns, a shear center of the stiffener with a centroid of the stiffener and aligns the shear center proximate an edge of the bondline, and removes the need for a radius filler noodle. A plurality of perforations may be formed through the bonding flange to permit an adhesive to wick into the perforations and create a mechanical interlock between the bonding flange and the panel.

Joints for joining panels together, such as for joining honeycomb sandwich panels used in aerospace applications, and methods of joining said panels are disclosed. In some examples of disclosed joints, a first panel and a second panel can be joined together to form a joint. The first panel can be a flat panel that includes a rabbet formed along a first longitudinal edge, and the second panel can be a curved panel that includes a notch formed along a second longitudinal edge. In forming the joint, a portion of the rabbet can be positioned within the notch, and the flat panel and curved panel can be oriented at a non-parallel and non-perpendicular angle to one another. Adhesive can be applied along the rabbet and/or the notch in order to secure the joint.

A lightweight support structure includes a composite sandwich panel having a first face sheet and a lightweight core attached to the face sheet and an essentially rotationally symmetric cut-out extending through the first face sheet and into the lightweight core. The cut-out has an essentially rotationally symmetric inner cut-out and outer cut-out arranged essentially concentric with respect to each other, providing for a support there between. The support has a core support cut from the lightweight core and a support face sheet disc on top, cut from of the first face sheet. A rotationally symmetric insert is fitted into the cut-out for load application and/or anchorage of various components into and onto the sandwich panel.

The invention relates to a method for producing a butt-welded joint between tube segments of a tube made of a weldable plastic material using a welding machine and to a welding machine (10), two tube segments each being held by a clamping apparatus (11) of a welding device (21) of the welding machine, welding contact surfaces of tube end cross sections of the tube segments being fused by means of a heating element (22) of the welding device and the welding contact surfaces subsequently being pressed against each other by a handling apparatus (18) of the welding device using a joining pressure to form a butt-welded seam connecting the tube segments to each other in a joining plane, the welding device being controlled by a control device of the welding machine, a data model of a tube system having at least one tube and a plurality of butt-welded joints being stored in the control device of the welding device, the data model comprising at least one object dataset representing the corresponding butt-welded joint and each having attributes, the control device detecting at least one weld parameter of the welding device as another attribute for the corresponding butt-welded joint and adding this weld parameter to the object dataset.

Joints for joining panels (60, 62) together, such as for joining honeycomb sandwich panels used in aerospace applications, and methods of joining said panels are disclosed. In some examples of disclosed joints, a first panel and a second panel can be joined together to form a joint. The first panel (60) can be a flat panel that includes a rabbet (80) formed along a first longitudinal edge, and the second panel (62) can be a curved panel that includes a notch (86) formed along a second longitudinal edge. In forming the joint, a portion of the rabbet (80) can be positioned within the notch (86), and the flat panel (60) and curved panel (62) can be oriented at a non-parallel and non-perpendicular angle to one another. Adhesive (99) is applied along the rabbet (80) and/or the notch (86) in order to secure the joint.

Peel ply for surface preparation and a method of surface preparation prior to adhesive bonding. A resin-rich peel ply is applied onto a curable, resin-based composite substrate, followed by co-curing. After co-curing, the composite substrate is fully cured but the matrix resin in the peel ply remains partially cured. When the peel ply is removed, a roughened, bondable surface with chemically-active functional groups is revealed. The composite substrate with the chemically-active, bondable surface may be bonded to another composite substrate to form a covalently-bonded structure.

The present invention provides a polarizing plate that includes a polarizer, and an optical film including an alignment layer, an optically anisotropic layer, and an optically isotropic acrylic polymer layer on at least one surface of the polarizer, in which the optically anisotropic layer is a layer formed by irradiating a polymerizable composition including a liquid crystal compound that is directly applied to the alignment layer with light to polymerize the liquid crystal compound, the acrylic polymer layer is a layer formed by curing a polymerizable composition including (meth)acrylate that is directly applied to a surface of the layer formed from the polymerizable composition including a liquid crystal compound, and the thickness of the acrylic polymer layer is larger than the thickness of the optically anisotropic layer. According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a polarizing plate having a small thickness.