In the process industry, many blow off systems are used. Practical Solution found a new blow off system which is 2.5 times cheaper than the old one and works five till 10 times better. Customers can now produce at maximum production speeds and energy is saved. The manufacturing costs lower with 80,000 euro per killn costing 1.5 million euros. Moreover, the customer can now adapt to blow off to its production speed because the blow off angles can now be adjusted. You can read more about this new blow off on the page working experiance / killn construction.
A manufacturer of fiberglass products got the order of producing a manhole cover which would be able to carry a nose wheel of a landing aircraft. The manhole was made in a mold by vacuum injection techniques Carbon fiber and epoxy resin were used. The carbon fibers were cut round and placed in a steel mold. About 60 layer of 250 grams carbon fiber was needed for one cover. Because (carbon) fabrics have anisotropic behavour due to the fiber main directions, each new layer of fabric was rotated a little compared to the previous one when placed in the mold.
Due to the weight of the plane the nose wheel generates bending forces in the manhole. Due to these bending forces shear stresses occur in thickness direction of the manhole. Due to the fact that the shear stress changes in thickness direction and no fibers are placed in thickness direction it is the resin to carry those shear stresses. But it is the fiber thats strong. The resin is much much weaker. The manhole is obviously as strong as its weakest point in this case the resin. Just by adding unidirectional fibers that are placed in the mold in thickness direction the design can be improved very much that expensive carbon fibers are not necessary anymore. Now glass fiber is good enough. With this redesign the manhole is more damage tolerant, stronger and more reliable at lower production costs. Here you can read more.
I was asked to improve the the connections of greenhouses for example between gutter and handle/rod. By strengthening the connections all used profiles could be made lighter. This could improve the profit a lot. Due to a bend in the profile of the handle this handle would easy bend open breaking the connection between gutter and handle. A foto of this failure mode can be seen here. Just turn in a simple screw in the end of the handle and breaking force would rise 100%. Now the gutter has become the weak part. Just by changing the already used clicker a stronger connection between gutter and handle is possible. The above mentioned fracture mechanisme is then not possible anymore. The new clicker can be seen here. More you can read on the page working experiance / constructive improvements in greenhouses.