SUSTAINABILITY
We are in a period of transition to an economy increasingly focused on renewable supplies and products with less social and environmental impacts. We believe that reducing the use of raw materials is an alternative not only to improve the management of production costs and processes, but also an important requirement of our current generation's values. Innovation and the search for sustainable solutions are essential to anticipate consumer trends, to develop a strong reputation for a brand, and to implement new ways of producing and developing products.
Helicoid Industries is committed to developing solutions that will improve the well-being and comfort of people, while reducing the socio-environmental impacts of composite products from their initial manufacturing to their disposal. Our goal is to help deliver the value-added products that consumers demand, but with a reduced impact on the environment.
The key to material efficiency is to demonstrate that there is a consumer benefit. Material efficiency is now more important than ever due to the scarcity of natural resources, and composite manufacturers are increasingly adopting a sustainable development profile. These efforts include; extending the lifetime of machinery, components, and spare parts as well as constantly looking to adopt new product innovations to replace previous products that consume greater amounts of raw materials. In composite production, raw materials typically represent over 50% of total production costs. Emerging markets, such as Asia and South America are growing fast, which also means rising use and cost of raw materials going forward. Considering all this, Helicoid Industries has positioned itself as an environmental solution provider with a comprehensive holistic approach.
POTENTIAL IMPACT ON SUSTANABILITY:
When the Helicoid architecture is applied to any composite material or product that is currently made with traditional fiber alignment, the Helicoid will provide numerous benefits including; reduced weight, increased impact strength, increased toughness, improved impact resistance, reduced material costs during manufacturing, less manufacturing waste due to increased tolerances, and allowing better energy efficiency when our lighter products are used in EVs, wind turbines, or aerospace.
The Helicoid technology can have a significant impact and benefit for thousands of products. Thus, it is difficult to estimate the sustainability improvements for all these various opportunities. Overall, Helicoid-based products will use less raw materials, create less waste at the end of their life-cycle, and provide energy efficiencies for applications such as lighter cars and airplanes.
Wind Turbine Blades:
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Increase blade size to reduce leveraged cost of energy
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Double Blade Length = Quadruple Energy (Stanford University)
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Resistance to harsh environment (sand, rain) to grant stable energy production
Automotive:
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Lightweight materials offer great potential for increasing vehicle efficiency as it takes less energy to accelerate a lighter object than a heavier one. A 10% reduction in vehicle weight can result in a 6%-8% fuel economy improvement.
Aerospace:
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Boeing and Airbus now utilize over 50% composites in commercial aircraft.
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Applying the helicoid architecture could potentially reduce the weight of a commercial aircraft by up to 50,000 pounds.
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“Just changing the paper stock on United’s in-flight magazine saved one ounce per copy, saving nearly $300,000 a year.” – CBS News 2018