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Ekoa is a natural Biocomposite available in dry fabrics, pre-pregs, as well as cores and resins. Ekoa has been used in a variety of applications, including musical instruments, such as a ukulele [1] and a guitar, [2] [3] as well as sports equipment, including a bicycle frame, [4] and a lacrosse stick. [5]
Ekoa was initially developed by Blackbird Guitars, a company that has made musical instruments out of Carbon fiber reinforced polymer, but started working on a biobased composite material that would work well for musical instruments. Blackbird worked with Entropy Resins to develop Ekoa, and released the first production musical instrument in 2013. Joe Luttwak of Blackbird and Desi Banatao of Entropy formed a separate company, Lingrove, LLC, to further develop Ekoa and expand applications. [6] Luttwak filed for a patent for "METHOD FOR MAKING LIGHT AND STIFF PANELS AND STRUCTURES USING NATURAL FIBER COMPOSITES" on November 18, 2014, which was given A1 Kind Code status on May 15, 2015. [7] Lingrove filed "Ekoa" as a registered trademark on November 12, 2013. The trademark was registered on February 3, 2015. [8] The trademark is registered under two separate classes: 015 - Musical instruments, and 024 - Textiles and textile goods, not included in other classes; bed and table covers.
Ekoa was initially developed to combine the tone of wooden instruments with the durability of a composite instrument. [9] Previously, composite instruments had been made with carbon fiber, glass fiber, or aluminum to achieve durability, but these materials did not have the same tonality of wood. To address this, Ekoa utilizes flax fibers and produces a tone more like wood. [10] The first musical instrument product made of Ekoa was the Blackbird Clara concert ukulele, which has won a variety of awards in the composites industry, including at The Composites And Advanced Material Expo (CAMX), JEC Americas, and Industrial Designers Society of America's IDEA Award. [11] [12] [13] Blackbird later introduced the El Capitan guitar model, also made with Ekoa.
For sports equipment, RockWest Composites has produced a bicycle frame in conjunction with Calfee,[ citation needed ] as well as a lacrosse stick with a hexagonal shape core wrapped in Ekoa twill.[ citation needed ]
Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, better known as Bakelite, is a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. The first plastic made from synthetic components, it was developed by Leo Baekeland in Yonkers, New York in 1907, and patented on December 7, 1909.
Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. It is typically spun into ropes or fabric sheets that can be used as such, or as an ingredient in composite material components.
Carbon fibers or carbon fibres are fibers about 5 to 10 micrometers (0.00020–0.00039 in) in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. Carbon fibers have several advantages: high stiffness, high tensile strength, high strength to weight ratio, high chemical resistance, high-temperature tolerance, and low thermal expansion. These properties have made carbon fiber very popular in aerospace, civil engineering, military, motorsports, and other competition sports. However, they are relatively expensive compared to similar fibers, such as glass fiber, basalt fibers, or plastic fibers.
Fiberglass or fibreglass is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth. The plastic matrix may be a thermoset polymer matrix—most often based on thermosetting polymers such as epoxy, polyester resin, or vinyl ester resin—or a thermoplastic.
Pre-preg is a composite material made from "pre-impregnated" fibers and a partially cured polymer matrix, such as epoxy or phenolic resin, or even thermoplastic mixed with liquid rubbers or resins. The fibers often take the form of a weave and the matrix is used to bond them together and to other components during manufacture. The thermoset matrix is only partially cured to allow easy handling; this B-Stage material requires cold storage to prevent complete curing. B-Stage pre-preg is always stored in cooled areas since heat accelerates complete polymerization. Hence, composite structures built of pre-pregs will mostly require an oven or autoclave to cure. The main idea behind a pre-preg material is the use of anisotropic mechanical properties along the fibers, while the polymer matrix provides filling properties, keeping the fibers in a single system.
The Ovation Guitar Company is a manufacturer of string instruments. Ovation primarily manufactures steel-string acoustic guitars and nylon-string guitars, often with pickups for electric amplification. In 2015, it became a subsidiary of Drum Workshop after being acquired from KMCMusicorp.
Steinberger is a series of distinctive electric guitars and bass guitars, designed and originally manufactured by Ned Steinberger. The name "Steinberger" can be used to refer to either the instruments themselves or the company that originally produced them. Although the name has been applied to a variety of instruments, it is primarily associated with a minimalist "headless" design of electric basses and guitars.
Ned Steinberger is an American creator of innovative musical instruments. He is most notable for his design of guitars and basses without a traditional headstock, which are called Steinberger instruments. He also has a line of electric basses and string instruments through his company called NS Design and was also the designer of the first ever Spector bass, the NS. In addition, Ned and Emmett Chapman, creator of the Chapman Stick, collaborated on the creation of the NS Stick, a guitar/bass "multi-mode" instrument sold by Stick Enterprises.
Micarta is a brand name for composites of linen, canvas, paper, fiberglass, carbon fiber, or other fabric in a thermosetting plastic. It was originally used in electrical and decorative applications. Micarta was developed by George Westinghouse at least as early as 1910 using phenolic resins invented by Leo Baekeland. These resins were used to impregnate paper and cotton fabric which were cured under pressure and high temperature to produce laminates. In later years this manufacturing method included the use of fiberglass fabric, and other resin types were also used. Today Micarta high-pressure industrial laminates are produced with a wide variety of resins and fibers. The term has been used generically for most resin impregnated fiber compounds. Common uses of modern high-pressure laminates include electrical insulators, printed circuit board substrates, and knife handles.
A biocomposite is a composite material formed by a matrix (resin) and a reinforcement of natural fibers. Environmental concern and cost of synthetic fibres have led the foundation of using natural fibre as reinforcement in polymeric composites. The matrix phase is formed by polymers derived from renewable and nonrenewable resources. The matrix is important to protect the fibers from environmental degradation and mechanical damage, to hold the fibers together and to transfer the loads on it. In addition, biofibers are the principal components of biocomposites, which are derived from biological origins, for example fibers from crops, recycled wood, waste paper, crop processing byproducts or regenerated cellulose fiber (viscose/rayon). The interest in biocomposites is rapidly growing in terms of industrial applications and fundamental research, due to its great benefits. Biocomposites can be used alone, or as a complement to standard materials, such as carbon fiber. Advocates of biocomposites state that use of these materials improve health and safety in their production, are lighter in weight, have a visual appeal similar to that of wood, and are environmentally superior.
Hexcel Corporation is an American public industrial materials company, based in Stamford, Connecticut. The company develops and manufactures structural materials. Hexcel was formed from the combination of California Reinforced Plastics, Ciba Composites and Hercules Composites Products Division. The company sells its products in commercial, military and recreational markets for use in commercial and military aircraft, space launch vehicles and satellites, wind turbine blades, sports equipment and automotive products. Hexcel works with Airbus Group, The Boeing Company, and others. Since 1980, the firm has publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol HXL.
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers, carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers, carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic, also known as carbon fiber, carbon composite, or just carbon, are extremely strong and light fiber-reinforced plastics that contain carbon fibers. CFRPs can be expensive to produce, but are commonly used wherever high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness (rigidity) are required, such as aerospace, superstructures of ships, automotive, civil engineering, sports equipment, and an increasing number of consumer and technical applications.
Forged composite, commonly referred to as forged carbon, is a type of carbon fiber SMC material composed of small pieces of carbon fiber composite material that are pressed into shape as the resin sets. This is in contrast to most carbon fiber composites, which are made of larger continuous layers that are 'laid up' one at a time, often manually. Forged composite allows for a higher range of shapes to be formed with precision, relative to traditional carbon fiber. It was originally developed jointly between Lamborghini, Callaway Golf Company, and the Lamborghini Lab. It was unveiled at the 2010 Paris Motor Show in a Lamborghini concept car, the Sesto Elemento. The United States trademark for forged composite was filed on July 13, 2010, in the category Toys and Sporting Goods Products by Callaway Golf, while the trademark for Forged Composites was registered in 2018 in the automotive category by Lamborghini.
Hybtonite is trademark of Amroy Europe Oy for carbon nanoepoxy resins. It is a family of composite resins reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
Carbon fiber testing is a set of various different tests that researchers use to characterize the properties of carbon fiber. The results for the testing are used to aid the manufacturer and developers decisions selecting and designing material composites, manufacturing processes and for ensured safety and integrity. Safety-critical carbon fiber components, such as structural parts in machines, vehicles, aircraft or architectural elements are subject to testing.
Blackbird Guitars is a musical instrument company that manufactures acoustic guitars and ukuleles from composite materials, including carbon fiber and ekoa, a flax linen reinforcement fabric in a bio-epoxy matrix. The company has made contributions to both the field of luthiery and the field of composite design, notably with the composite all-hollow unibody instrument design used on all Blackbird models, as well as the development and use of Ekoa in the construction of fretted instruments.
The Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL), commonly referred to as the Lamborghini Lab, was a research and development facility based in Seattle, Washington from 2007 to 2018, which focused on the development of carbon fiber composite technologies for Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. The ACSL also designed and developed carbon fiber products for other organizations in other industries. The hallmark technology pioneered by the Lamborghini Lab is the forged composite technology.
Paolo Feraboli is a carbon fiber technology inventor and businessman. He is the founder and CTO of Gemini Composites, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber and Composites, and founder and former Director of the Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL). He is known for having invented the Forged Composite technology, and his contributions to the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento and Aventador programs.
Hybrid wood or wood hybrid systems (WHS) is a multilayer composite material, composed on the surface of a skin made of composite wood (WPC) adhering to an underneath structural core, in general aluminum. Invented in Japan in 2008, this technological evolution is based on wood composite technology which was conceived in 1972 by Sadao Nishibori and patented in 1983 to substitute threatened exotic wood species. WHS are not fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP).
Lava Music Inc., stylized as LAVA MUSIC, is a music technology company based in Guangdong, China.