The past 14th of May the opening of the biannual 2018 Spring edition of the Baltic Conference Series (BCS) was celebrated, organized by the International Association of Advanced Materials and VBRI Sverige AB. The conference took place in a cruise ship between Stockholm (Sweden) and Helsinki (Finland), and included parallel sessions in different fields of new age technology and innovation such as Carbon Materials and Technology, Plastics and Rubber, Epoxy and Resins, Pulp and Paper Technology and Wood Technology.
CIDETEC, coordinator of Mat4Rail and WP2 leader participated in the Epoxy and Resins Conference with the oral communication “Towards a composite based carbody: Improving the FST properties of epoxy resins”, which was presented by CIDETEC´s researcher Sandra Gómez-Fernández and was developed with contributions from HUNTSMAN Advanced Materials, AIMPLAS and RISE. This work included and overview of the latest results obtained in the development of new epoxy resin formulations with improved flame retardancy, for their further application in fibre reinforced polymers. These fiber reinforced polymers, which are aimed to be used in the railway industry, need to comply with the demanding EN 45545:2 “Railway applications – Fire Protection on Railway Vehicles”standard. Owing to the intrinsic flammability of epoxy resins, their formulation needs to be improved in order to develop safe and lightweight materials that meet the specifications of the railway regulation.
For this reason, the impact on the properties of epoxy resins by using different flame retardant approaches was depicted and discussed in this conference, analyzing properties such as glass transition temperature, onset curing temperature, thermal stability, tensile properties as well as ignitability and flame spread.
The conference counted on more than 120 participants. The active participation, feedback and questions of the attendees were an excellent demonstration of the high interest that Mat4Rail research arises.