JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #106 - July 2016 - 55

marine

The first-ever all-composite
lighthouse marine navigation aid
Huntsman Advanced Materials' commitment to innovation and
process improvement was tested to the full on a recent lighthouse
project led by Acciona Infraestructuras. Working in collaboration with
a number of partners, an outstanding result was achieved which
went on to win one of the prestigious 2016 JEC World Innovation
Awards - the first-ever all-composite lighthouse that was recently
constructed and installed at the port of Valencia, Spain.

C

omposites are regarded as the
'go-to' material of choice for many
design engineers, and it is no
surprise to learn that, with this first-ofits-kind lighthouse, another world first
for these materials has been achieved in
the construction and civil engineering
industries.
Having emerged from the price-prohibitive 'space-age' materials of the past, composites influence many different aspects
of our everyday lives. From helping to
safely extract and distribute energy to our
homes and delivering better performing
and lightweight vehicle designs through
to featuring in various items of clothing
accessories and sports equipment, composites have become ubiquitous.
They can be formed into any shape and
deliver stiffness, strength and low weight
to different structural designs, all facilitated through the latest technologies that
make the fast production of high-quality
composite materials more commercially
viable and attractive than ever before.

Innovation in the spotlight
The lighthouse project has also overcome
perceived limitations for composites,

opening the way for other applications
requiring light, tall structures to benefit
from utilising Huntsman Advanced Materials' proven material innovations.
Developed as the first prototype by
Acciona Infraestructuras at the beginning
of January 2013, this tower structure is
testament to the advances in material engineering that occurred in the short time
the project took to complete in February
2015. For example, following the design
and process selection, all the composite
components were manufactured within
the period of a working month at the
Composite workshop of Acciona in
Madrid.

By
PHILIPPE CHRISTOU, HEAD OF EUROPEAN TECHNICAL SUPPORT
HUNTSMAN
ANURAG BANSAL, HEAD OF MANUFACTURING-COMPOSITES
ACCIONA INFRAESTRUCTURAS

a special pultrusion process to achieve
the production of high-quality and very
thick pultruded profiles combining carbon tows and heavy carbon fabrics. Easy
to impregnate, epoxy compatible, giving
faster pulling speed and better chemical
resistance glass fiber were supplied by
ownes corning for GFRP tubes.

Resin-infused GFRP floors
for a complex set of needs
Architectural requirements stipulated that
while the lightweight GFRP floors were
subject to certain aesthetics and chemical
resistance factors, they should also not
exceed a thickness of 20cm.
Due to the constraints of cost, time,

Several processes and
resin solutions contributed
to the project's success
Combinations of hybrid, CFRP and
GFRP composites were selected for the
tower's principal components, calling
for the development of new material
systems and processes to fulfil the design
engineer's vision for the 35m-tall tower
structure.
The lighthouse's structural column is
made up of eight 35m-long CFRP pultruded tubes, with an outside diameter
of 250mm and a thickness of 20mm.
Acciona Infraestructuras had to develop

The first ever all composite lighthouse in Valencia

No106 July 2016 / jec

composites magazine

55
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #106 - July 2016
