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CST in AMT Magazine – Towpreg article

By All News

This article was published in the June/July edition of AMT (Australian Manufacturing Technology) Magazine. It explains the benefits of towpreg over wet winding and introduces CST’s towpreg and its unique benefits. You can read the article below or click here to read the full magazine.

CST makes half the masts for the Paris Olympics

By All News

We are very proud to announce that CST masts will be used on around half the boats competing in the upcoming Paris Olympics.

Our masts will be used on the ILCA6, ILCA7, 49er and 49erFX classes.

This has been the culmination of developing our own Towpregs (see separate News item on this) and the hard work of our Australian production team.

The consistency in the quality of our masts, resulting from the finest Towpregs produced on our unique closed loop system, will mean that no competitor gets an unfair advantage.

We are now making our own Towpregs

By All News

Over the past three years CST’s R&D team have been developing its own towpreg manufacturing capability at our Kurnell and Ingleburn facilities. Not only has CST spent years in their resin lab determining the best resin formulations for each type of fibre, but has also designed and built machines for towpreg manufacture incorporating unique resin impregnation techniques and closed loop feedback and controls.

CST believe it now has the highest quality and most consistent carbon fibre, fibreglass and aramid towpregs on the market.

We are currently using our towpregs to make superior composite spars and tubes in a clean room environment, however we are on track to ramp up production to be able to sell towpreg as a product in itself.

Stay tuned…

Australian Made

By All News

CST manufacture innovative carbon fibre solutions locally and export all over the world.

Here are a couple of shots from last months shipments to Europe.

CST targets green hydrogen supply chain

By All News

Next stop … U.S.A.

CST Composites is going global this year with a joint venture with U.S. firm Optimum Composite Technologies.

After 26 years, the move positions CST on the path as a leading player in the global green hydrogen supply chain.

The partnership complements both companies’ manufacturing abilities, giving CST Composites access to Optimum’s technical expertise and Intellectual Property (IP) in carbon fibre pressure vessels. It also means greater access to U.S. markets for its high quality, filament-wound composite tubing by leveraging Optimum’s U.S. facilities, customer base and supply chain.Carbon fibre pressure vesselCST Composites will expand its core capabilities in designing and producing Composite Pressure Vessels (CPVs) and other applications.

The Australian Government is committed to Australia being a major hydrogen player by 2030.

CST growth plans include establishing Australia’s first hydrogen vessel manufacturing facility, which will service emerging and growing demand from the defence, space, transport and energy sectors.

Click here to read the full media release.

Press release: CST targets green hydrogen supply chain

By Press Releases
Cst Optimum

After 26 years in business, Australia’s CST Composites is positioning itself to be a leading player in the global green hydrogen supply chain through a joint venture with US-based hydrogen storage tank manufacturer Optimum Composite Technologies.

The joint venture will see CST Composites expand its core capabilities to support the growth of Optimum’s business in designing and producing Composite Pressure Vessels (CPVs), which are used to store hydrogen and Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) and have many other applications.

Carbon fibre pressure vessel

CST has two manufacturing facilities in Australia and the growth plans include establishing Australia’s first hydrogen vessel manufacturing facility, which will service emerging and growing demand from the defence (e.g. VTOL vehicles), space (e.g. rockets), transport and energy sectors.

This manufacturing facility will help advance Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy, which highlights the need to develop the country’s supply chain infrastructure, including hydrogen storage tanks. High pressure storage tanks at low cost will be a crucially important part of transport, building backups and many other aspects of hydrogen adoption.

The joint venture will complement both companies’ manufacturing abilities. CST Composites will have access to Optimum’s technical expertise and Intellectual Property (IP) in carbon fibre pressure vessels. CST Composites will also gain greater access to US markets for its high quality, filament-wound composite tubing by leveraging Optimum’s US facilities, customer base and supply chain.

CST Composites managing director, Clive Watts, said “High-pressure gas storage vessels is one of the biggest and fastest-growing markets globally for advanced composites, particularly for filament-wound carbon fibre composites”.

Recent significant corporate developments include South Korean Hanwha Solutions’ acquisition of US hydrogen storage tank manufacturer Cimarron Composites and its plans to invest US$100 million to expand the business.

The Australian Government is investing $1.4 billion to position Australia as a major hydrogen player by 2030. Mr Watts said “we will be applying for the grants and financial support available to advance our projects, which focus on the innovative design and development of hydrogen and CPV products. We are planning to make a significant investment to grow our new joint venture”.

CST Composites is a leader in filament winding technology and 90 per cent of its products are exported to Europe, the US, China and Asia. All of its profiles and tubing are currently manufactured at its high-tech facilities in Sydney. The company was a recent recipient of funding under Round 2 of the Australian Government’s Manufacturing Modernisation Fund.

Optimum Logo

About Optimum

Optimum specializes in the design, fabrication and production of type 3 and 4 alternative fuel cylinders. As a fuel storage specialist, Optimum is continuously seeking to advance in an ever-growing industry. Optimum’s goal is to provide our customers with high quality, safe, and durable fuel storage tanks to satisfy their needs. The company was formed with the synergy of an experienced American designer and a global manufacturing network.

With over 23 years of combined experience in the design and fabrication of COPV’s, Optimum is able to design and fabricate innumerable tanks of various types, sizes, uses, and operating pressures. Optimum’s role as a clean fuel advocate is to provide the worldwide community with a way of storing compressed fuels safely. Optimum are filament winding experts with over 50 years of industry experience. Their world class engineers work on the cutting edge of automotive, aerospace, marine, and infrastructure projects. Created to produce hydrogen storage cylinders, they are continually growing, innovating, and helping businesses stand out.

CST Newsletter – December 2020

By All News

2020 has of course been a difficult year for everyone around the world. That said, it has been an exciting year for us and our 25th year at CST Composites.

Many milestones have been achieved throughout the year, including outgrowing our factory at Kurnell and moving production to a larger facility in Ingleburn, Western Sydney. We look forward to continuing our expansion of technology and production capacity in 2021. By no means exhaustive, here are a few of the achievements our team has made over the past year.

Technology

We’ve worked with all of our customers through periods of disruption and uncertainty to support their needs. Key to this has been the efforts made to increase our production capacity. The uncertainty brough on by COVID has greatly increased the difficulty of forecasting market demand for products, but by continuing to push the boundaries of our production capacity we have been able to meet the sudden spikes in demand caused by economies reopening. We’ve added an extra winding machine as well as increasing the level of automation across production, post processing of tubes and quality control.

One big milestone achieved in 2020 was the conversion of all production to prepreg fibre. This has numerous benefits in terms of minimising health and safety risks during production while ensuring consistency and repeatability of our products.

New products

2020 saw the launch of TowPro masts for the I14, 16ft Skiff, Sabot and Flying 11 classes. Leveraging the technology developed for our Moth TowPro range, these masts feature machined aluminium fittings, precision joining sleeves for interchangeable panels and prepreg construction. The interchangeable panels allow for fine tuning mast bend by swapping out parts of the mast rather than building a completely new spar.

We have also launched class approved products for the ILCA 6 (Radial), 49er and 49erFX. We are excited to continue powering the highest levels of competitive sailing with these new products.

We were also proud to see AMSL Aero’s Vertiia eVTOL aircraft making headlines in the Australian Financial Review. CST’s engineering and materials knowledge have been supporting the wing spar development that will see this electric Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft flying in 2021. Congratulations to the team at AMSL Aero and all involved for a job well done.

Sailing results

Congratulations to the following class champions who achieved fantastic results during 2020 using CST products:

  • Archie Massey and Harvey Hillary won the I14 worlds in January, our 13th win in this development class.
  • The Australian 16ft Skiff nationals were won by Sutech Musto Racing.
  • Dylan Fletcher won the UK Moth Nationals – the event originally planned to be the 2020 World Championship.
  • Bryce Edwards and Josh Tasker took home the MG14 Australian Championship
  • Nicolas Goyard won the Formula Foil World Championship using a Slake mast powered by CST Composites.

We wish good luck and fair winds to our team sailors competing over the Australian summer.

Merry Christmas

CST is closed for the Christmas break from the 19th of December, restarting on the 4th of January. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year.