The 26th edition of the International Sheet Metal Working Technology Exhibition, EuroBLECH 2020, will take place from 27 – 30 October 2020 at the Hanover Exhibition Grounds in Germany. The show organisers, Mack Brooks Exhibitions, have now announced the expansion of exhibition space for EuroBLECH 2020 with the addition of a ninth hall for the first time in its history. This reflects a further increase in exhibition space compared to the previous event in 2018, which covered a total of 89 800 square metres.

“Around nine months ahead of the show the demand for stand space continues to be very strong”, explains Evelyn Warwick, Exhibition Director of EuroBLECH, on behalf of the organiser Mack Brooks Exhibitions. “With the directly neighbouring hall 26, we are now able to offer additional stand space for the exhibition to meet the demand of exhibitors to display their latest machines in the various technology sectors. The additional hall will host exhibitors of joining technology, as well as surface and tool technology, which have previously been located in hall 13. The ninth hall is giving us the possibility to assign stand space to additional exhibiting companies within the entire sheet metal working technology chain represented at EuroBLECH. The growth to a ninth exhibition hall reflects the increasing demand for stand space at the leading industry event and offers even more capacity for businesses to present their innovations to an international audience”, continues Evelyn Warwick.

Currently, more than 95 000 square metres of net exhibition space have been booked or reserved at the world’s leading sheet metal working technology exhibition. This represents an increase of almost 6% in stand space compared to the previous show in 2018. The biggest exhibitor countries include Germany, Italy, Turkey, China, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Great Britain and the USA.

For EuroBLECH 2020, the main topics represent the latest industry trends, including smart sheet metal working as well as automation and digitalisation of the manufacturing chain, with the objective to increase output and efficiency. For exhibiting companies in this industry sector, it is a vital time to present their machines, systems and solutions for networked manufacturing to an international audience.

Every two years, the world’s largest sheet metal working technology exhibition attracts top industry professionals from all over the world. The show targets specialists at all management levels in small and medium-sized companies as well as large enterprises from all key industry sectors. Featuring an enormous amount of live machine demonstrations, EuroBLECH is renowned with international sheet metal working professionals as the most important event to find smart solutions and the right machines, equipment and materials for their companies. A total of 56 307 international trade visitors attended the previous show.

The EuroBLECH exhibition profile is clearly structured and covers the entire sheet metal working technology chain: sheet metal, semi-finished and finished products, handling, separation, forming, flexible sheet metal working, joining, welding, tube/section processing, surface treatment, processing of hybrid structures, tools, machine elements, quality control, CAD/CAM/CIM systems, factory equipment and research & development. The organisers recommend companies interested in exhibiting to reserve their stand space as soon as possible in order to be placed within their respective technology sector.

The latest exhibitor list as well as further information on the exhibition is available at www.euroblech.com.

The Thompsons Group, the UK’s number one manufacturer of tipper bodies, has taken delivery of a TRUMPF TruBend 8600-80 bending machine at its Blackburn facility. The machine, which is the largest TRUMPF TruBend in the UK, is being used to form tipper side panels from 4mm thick Hardox® abrasion-resistant steel.

Thompsons, which has UK sites in Croydon, Blackburn, Dover and Edinburgh, says that it builds and sells more tipper bodies than all of its competitors combined. Since 2000, the business has expanded five-fold.

Following its inception in East London 45 years ago, Thompsons has manufactured over 30 000 tipper bodies, of which around half are still in operation today. The bodies cover the full range of commercial vehicles, from 3.5 to 44 tonnes GVW (gross vehicle weight). Thompsons’ customers not only come from the construction industry, but sectors such as waste, environment, highways, utilities and rental. Top of the rigid range is the Loadmaster, some 15 000 of which have been delivered in the past 20 years.

“With order volumes rising there is a constant need to keep pace with production and invest in our future,” explains Director Neil Griffin. “We recently installed a robotic welding cell, which shifted the bottleneck to bending. In addition, even though our existing press brake offers a capacity of 400 tonnes, we needed more to help us process 4mm thick Hardox®, which is a tough, wear-resistant steel with a hardness of 450HB.”

Griffin and his team scrutinised three potential bending machine suppliers, but it was TRUMPF that impressed the most. “We went to the TRUMPF factory and saw the machines in action,” he says. “Once they assessed our application, the TRUMPF team recommended the TruBend 8600-80, which we knew immediately was the right machine. At the same time we purchased the TRUMPF TruLaser 3030 laser cutting machine.”

The TRUMPF TruBend 8600-80 impresses not just with its precise versatility, but its large open height, throat depth and press force. Users can process particularly large and heavy parts. Thompsons’ TruBend 8600-60 offers a 600 tonne press force, and to fulfil the customers’ requirements TRUMPF customised the machine with an additional 8m bending length option.

“After profiling, the side panels of the tipper bodies each require up to 12 bends, which is where the tonnage of the TRUMPF TruBend 8600- 80 really comes into its own,” says Griffin. “Having capability of this type in-house is a real market advantage as we don’t have to rely on subcontractors, and thus avoid all the associated costs and lead-time issues that strategy brings. Moreover, all Thompsons’ tipper bodies are manufactured specifically for each customer, who can specify the height, length and width of the tipper bodies they require. As we manufacture in-house, meeting these needs could not be simpler.”

Thompsons manufactures circa 25 Hardox® tipper bodies on a weekly basis, which means 50 sides to bend, plus floors and tailgates. The new TRUMPF TruBend 8600-80, located at the Blackburn factory, is currently working a single day shift but a night shift maybe required to keep up with demand.

“Having the higher tonnage machine makes light work of the Hardox® panels,” reports Griffin. “In addition, the machine is more accurate than our existing press brake. As a company, we are always looking to improve and innovate, so machines such as the TRUMPF TruBend 8600-80 serve to future-proof our business.”

Parts arriving at the TruBend 8600-80 for bending will likely have been profiled on the company’s TRUMPF TruLaser 3030 laser cutter. Importantly, the TruLaser 3030 features the optional TRUMPF Highspeed Eco function, which allows faster profiling with up to 70% less gas consumption. “Furthermore, the cut quality on all parts up to 25mm thick is better than anything we’ve achieved previously,” states Griffin.

When acquiring the TruLaser 3030, TRUMPF simplified the process by buying and removing the company’s old laser cutter. “We’ve had nothing but a very positive experience with TRUMPF, both from a machine and people perspective,” concludes Griffin. “As a result, we have high hopes for a successful partnership together moving forward. Any high-quality, market-leading product inevitably has leading-edge technologies behind it, and tipper bodies are no exception. Every year, over £1 million is invested back into our factories as we look to continuously improve on the service we provide to customers. The TRUMPF machines are a good example of this policy in action.”

Airbus has successfully performed the first fully automatic vision-based take-off using an Airbus Family test aircraft at Toulouse-Blagnac airport. The test crew comprising of two pilots and two flight test engineers took off on 18 December last year and conducted a total of 8 take-offs over a period of four and a half hours.

“The aircraft performed as expected during these milestone tests. While completing alignment on the runway, waiting for clearance from air traffic control, we engaged the autopilot,” said Airbus Test Pilot Captain Yann Beaufils. “We moved the throttle levers to the take-off setting and we monitored the aircraft. It started to move and accelerate automatically maintaining the runway centre line, at the exact rotation speed as entered in the system. The nose of the aircraft began to lift up automatically to take the expected take-off pitch value and a few seconds later we were airborne.”

Rather than relying on an Instrument Landing System (ILS), the existing ground equipment technology currently used by in-service passenger aircraft in airports around the world where the technology is present, this automatic take-off was enabled by image recognition technology installed directly on the aircraft.

Automatic take-off is an important milestone in Airbus’ Autonomous Taxi, Take-Off & Landing (ATTOL) project. Launched in June 2018, ATTOL is one of the technological flight demonstrators being tested by Airbus in order to understand the impact of autonomy on aircraft. The next steps in the project will see automatic vision-based taxi and landing sequences taking place by mid-2020.

Airbus’ mission is not to move ahead with autonomy as a target in itself, but instead to explore autonomous technologies alongside other innovations in areas such as materials, electrification and connectivity. By doing so, Airbus is able to analyse the potential of these technologies in addressing the key industrial challenges of tomorrow, including improving air traffic management, addressing pilot shortages and enhancing future operations. At the same time Airbus is leveraging these opportunities to further improve aircraft safety while ensuring today’s unprecedented levels are maintained.

For autonomous technologies to improve flight operations and overall aircraft performance, pilots will remain at the heart of operations. Autonomous technologies are paramount to supporting pilots, enabling them to focus less on aircraft operation and more on strategic decisionmaking and mission management.

The BelugaXL has entered into service, providing Airbus with 30% extra transport capacity in order to support the on-going production ramp-up of commercial aircraft programmes.

The aircraft, which is an integral part of Airbus’ industrial system, made its first operational flight, recently. This is the first of six BelugaXL to begin work alongside the BelugaST predecessors, with the additional aircraft being introduced between 2020 and 2023.

Launched just over 5 years ago, the entry into service milestone marks yet another successful achievement for the internal aircraft programme which was awarded Type Certification by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in November 2019, following an intensive flight test campaign that saw the BelugaXL complete more than 200 flight tests, clocking over 700 flight hours.

At 63 metres long and 8 metres wide, the BelugaXL has the largest cargo bay cross-section of all existing cargo aircraft worldwide. The BelugaXL can carry two A350 XWB wings compared to the BelugaST, which can only carry one. With a maximum payload of 51 tonnes, the BelugaXL has a range of 4 000km (2 200nm).

The BelugaXL is based on an A330-200 Freighter, enabling the re-use of existing components and equipment and is powered by Rolls Royce Trent 700 engines. The lowered cockpit, the cargo bay structure and the rear-end and tail were newly developed jointly with partners, giving the aircraft its distinctive look.

The BelugaXL is the latest addition to Airbus’ transportation portfolio. While air transport remains the primary method for transporting large aircraft components, Airbus also uses road, rail and sea transport to move parts between its production sites. Like the BelugaST, the aircraft will operate from 11 destinations in Europe, continuing to strengthen industrial capabilities and enabling Airbus to deliver on its commitments.

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner’s first mission ended historically when it became the first American orbital space capsule to land on American soil rather than in an ocean, recently.

The spacecraft’s crew module landed at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range at 5:48 a.m. Mountain time, after spending just over two days on orbit and checking off a number of flight test objectives. The last time a spacecraft landed at the historic White Sands Space Harbor runway was in 1982, when Space Shuttle Columbia touched down, ending its STS-3 mission.

Shortly after its December 20 launch and separation from its booster rocket, Starliner experienced a mission timing anomaly that made it use too much fuel to reach the intended destination of the International Space Station. Flight controllers were able to address the issue and put Starliner into a lower, stable orbit. The vehicle demonstrated key systems and capabilities before being signaled to return to Earth.

“The Starliner team’s quick recovery and ability to achieve many mission objectives – including safe deorbit, re-entry and landing – is a testament to the people of Boeing who have dedicated years of their lives working toward the achievement of commercial human spaceflight,” said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. “Their professionalism and collaboration with our NASA customer in challenging conditions allowed us to make the most of this mission.”

The Starliner landing demonstrated the robustness of its landing systems, including its innovative parachutes and airbags.

Although this Starliner carried no people, it did have a passenger. An anthropometric test device, named “Rosie,” was in the commander’s seat for the entire mission. She was outfitted with about a dozen sensors that collected data to help prove Starliner is safe for future human crews.

Next, this crew module will be returned to Florida for data retrieval, analysis and refurbishment for future missions. It is the vehicle chosen to fly NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Josh Cassada, along with two international partner astronauts, on the first operational mission. In parallel, Boeing’s Starliner team is finalizing the vehicle that will fly Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson and NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann on the Crewed Flight Test.

Boeing recently delivered the core stage of NASA’s first Space Launch System (SLS) deep space exploration rocket, moving it out of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Pegasus barge.

The event marks the first time a completed rocket stage has shipped out of Michoud since the end of the Apollo program. SLS Core Stage 1 is the largest single rocket stage ever built by NASA and its industry partners.

The rollout follows several weeks of final testing and check-outs after NASA’s declaration of “core stage complete”.

NASA will transport the SLS core stage to its Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, for “Green Run” hot-fire engine tests later this year. After inspection and refurbishing for launch, the stage moves to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At Kennedy, the core stage will be integrated with the Interim Cryogenic Upper Stage (ICPS) and NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon.

“The Boeing SLS team has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with NASA and our supplier partners to face multiple challenges with ingenuity and perseverance, while keeping safety and quality at the forefront,” said John Shannon, Boeing SLS vice president and program manager.

SLS is the world’s most powerful rocket, evolvable and built to carry astronauts and cargo farther and faster than any rocket in history. Its unmatched capabilities will deliver human-rated spacecraft, habitats and science missions to the moon, Mars and beyond as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

“We are applying what we’ve learned from development of the first core stage to accelerate work on core stages 2 and 3, already in production at Michoud, as well as the Exploration Upper Stage that will power NASA’s most ambitious Artemis missions,” said Shannon.

Agility Robotics is launching Digit, a robot with arms and legs to work with humans and in human spaces, for commercial sale. Ford Motor Company is the first customer, receiving the first two robots off the line. This cooperation continues the existing partnership between Agility and Ford (www.agilityrobotics.com/ ford-partnership) to explore ways to help commercial vehicle customers, including autonomous vehicle businesses, make warehousing and delivery more efficient and affordable for their customers.

Key applications for further exploration are indoor or first-mile logistics and last-50-feet delivery. The research also will focus on how Ford’s commercial vehicles and Digit “talk” to each other and their surroundings through advanced connectivity technologies. For example, Ford’s connected vehicles can continually update cloud-based maps that can be shared with Digit so it doesn’t have to recreate the same type of information.

The team expects that, as Digit will be part of a package delivery service, this communication channel will also provide delivery specific information such as where a customer prefers packages to be left, or other individual package delivery needs. This communication channel also allows Digit to ask for help if something unexpected is encountered.

“As online retailing continues growing, we believe robots will help our commercial customers build stronger businesses by making deliveries more efficient and affordable for all of us,” said Ken Washington, vice president, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer. “We learned a lot this year working with Agility, now we can accelerate our exploratory work with commercial Digit robots.”

Since the first Digit prototype was shown in May 2019, Agility Robotics has tested it extensively, refined the design, and added features to be ready for production and sale to customers. Upgrades and improvements include more advanced feet that allow Digit to balance on one foot or carefully navigate obstacles, new sensors to perceive and map the world for robot navigation, and customer-ready, powerful onboard computer hardware. “We’re excited about the technical capabilities and advanced legged mobility of Digit”, said Dr. Jonathan Hurst, CTO of Agility. “Videos can show a solid proof of concept – but this robot is ready to go out in the world in the hands of customers, and start to really explore pragmatic use cases.”

Agility sold its breakthrough robot Cassie as a bipedal research platform from August 2017 through July 2019 and has spent the latter half of 2019 transitioning production over to Digit. “Digit represents a major milestone for Agility,” said Dr. Damion Shelton, CEO of Agility. “For the first time, a full humanoid robot, with both mobility and manipulation capabilities, will be available for customer applications in a wide variety of industries, both indoor and outdoor. We look forward to showing off our work on both logistics and nonlogistics tasks in the coming months.”

Digit has been designed to walk upright without wasting energy, so it has no issue traversing the same types of environments most people do every day. Digit’s unique design also allows it to tightly fold itself up for easy storage in the back of a vehicle until it’s called into action. Once a vehicle arrives at its destination, Digit can be deployed to grab a package from the vehicle and carry out the final step in the delivery process. If it encounters an unexpected obstacle, it can send an image back to the vehicle to leverage additional computing power. The vehicle could even send that information into the cloud and request help from other systems to enable Digit to navigate, providing multiple levels of assistance that help keep the robot light and nimble. Digit’s light weight also helps ensure it has a long run time, which is essential for delivery businesses that operate continuously through the business day.

Former racing catamaran turned ship of the future, Energy Observer has made waves as it has been navigating its six-year odyssey around the world as the first energy-autonomous hydrogen vessel. Today, Toyota, official partner of Energy Observer and an avid supporter of their project from the start, announces that it has developed a fuel cell system for maritime applications, with its first delivery destined for Energy Observer.

Embarking in June 2017 from Saint- Malo Port in France, Energy Observer is an electrically propelled vessel of the future that is operated using a mix of renewable energies and an on-board system that produces carbon-free hydrogen from seawater. The operators of the vessel are on a mission to go and meet people in 50 countries and 101 ports during their voyage who are designing the future, with an aimto prove that a cleaner world is not only possible, but that the innovations can open some doors to a new economic expansion. Their activities also demonstrate and share potential solutions to champion an ecological and energy transition, as well as support tomorrow’s energy networks as they encourage providers to make the networks more efficient and applicable on a large scale.

Previously, Toyota’s fuel cell system, which was first introduced in the Toyota Mirai, the world’s first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle, proved its value as a propulsion system for automobiles. However, the company has more recently been exploring the use of its fuel cell system in other applications such as buses and trucks.

Toyota, a company aiming to develop a hydrogen society based on its challenge to “Establish a future society in Harmony with Nature” as stated in its Environmental Challenge 2050, was able to align with Energy Observer.’s mission and activities. From that common ground, the two have worked closely together on how a hydrogen fuel cell system could be adapted to martime applications, which eventually led to the introduction of Toyota’s maritime fuel cell technology and system.

The maritime-specific fuel cell system was developed by Toyota Technical Center Europe in a mere seven months. It required a re-design of the system, followed by the build and installation of the compact nfuel cell module. This was accomplished using components first introduced in the Toyota Mirai which were fitted into a more compact module suitable for marine applications. The project successfully demonstrates the adaptability of the Toyota fuel cell technology to a variety of applications, including those outside of land-based vehicles.

“We are very proud to embark the Toyota Fuel Cell System on our oceans passages, and test it in the roughest conditions. After three years and nearly 20 000 nautical miles of development, the Energy Observer energy supply and storage system is now very reliable and we look forward to the next step of the project : Get a reliable and affordable system available for our maritime community. We believe that the Toyota Fuel Cell System is the perfect component for this, industrially produced, efficient and safe. Being an ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), our mission is to promoteclean energy solutions and we share with Toyota the same vision for a hydrogen society.” Victorien Erussard, founder and captain of Energy Observer.

The Toyota Fuel Cell System has proven its benefits already for many years in the Mirai, but more recently also in other applications such as buses and trucks. Using it for maritime transportation is again another step closer to the development of the hydrogen society. Toyota believes that hydrogen is the catalyst for energy decarbonisation and the technology acceptance can accelerate with the Toyota Fuel Cell System modular solution, which can be considered for a multitude of applications.