2018 World Pultrusion Conference: full report

The European Pultrusion Technology Association (EPTA) has published an in-depth report on its 2018 conference, which attracted a record number of composites professionals from around the world to Vienna, Austria on 1-2 March.

The 12-page document, World Pultrusion Conference 2018: Attractive Long-Term Prospects for Pultruded Composites, is available to download from the EPTA website and covers the global trends such as sustainability which continue to drive the adoption of composite materials in numerous industries including construction, transportation, consumer goods, and the electrical and chemical sectors.

According to the report, pultrusion, one of the few continuous processes for manufacture of composite parts, enables the cost effective, high volume production of structural profiles and the market for pultruded composites has been experiencing steady growth.

The report addresses the following topics:

• growth drivers for the pultrusion industry
• promising application areas for pultruded composites in infrastructure, building and construction, wind turbine blades, automotive components and other sectors
• advances in materials designed to improve performance and productivity, including the latest developments in polyurethane resins and epoxy pultrusion systems and new anhydride curing agents
• research initiatives focused on novel reinforcements, microwave-assisted pultrusion and in-line non-destructive testing (NDT)
• progress in standardization in the US and Europe.

EPTA's World Pultrusion Conference is a biennial event and the largest forum for the pultrusion industry in Europe. The next conference will take place in 2020.