On Tuesday 28th March, as part of our 3D printing enrichment, 15 pupils ranging from Year 7 to 9 visited Gurit in Newport. The company manufactures and supplies composite materials to a huge range of industries, from wind turbines to laminating resins and adhesives, as well as developing structural core materials.

Our visit to the site started with an in-depth health and safety presentation, as we would be seeing all aspects of this busy industrial site. This was followed by a very interesting presentation about the vision and ethos of the company. During the presentation, it was fascinating to hear first hand accounts of how interwoven the relationship between Chemistry and Physics are in real world applications. The composites industry is perhaps unique in the close relationship between the development of chemical formulations in a lab, and the final hardware that does a structural job in the field. An intrinsic part of the Gurit mission is to operate at maximum sustainability, and again, a direct link in this presentation to the GCSE chemistry specifications of recycled materials (wind turbines consist of a significant number of recycled plastic bottles for example). This requires Gurit to consider every single stage of manufacturing to ensure that operations occur with as little environmental impact as possible. Geographers might like to note that the Newport site is strategically important as the site supplies neighbouring Vestas with materials for their wind turbine blade factory. This allows the gigantic blades to be shipped offshore to wind farms, from the river medina.  We learned that roads being windy and impassable means that more efficient larger turbines will increasingly evolve offshore. Our pupils then gave their own presentations on what they have learned so far about 3D printing, and it was great to see how well our nervous but determined pupils coped when presenting their own work to industry professionals. 

Next, each group went on a guided tour of the site, where they saw sales, development, and logistics teams hard at work in the office sections of the site, and then to the factory floor where they saw industrial scale chemistry happening in an impressive computer controlled, manually operated vat system. Next the group saw several batching processes where products were prepared for market in accordance with customer requirements. The factory floor was abuzz with so many diverse sectors, with each operative skilfully operating precision machinery. Our pupils learned about the complex and intricate nature of chemical deliveries, and saw the enormous and mind bogglingly complex manufacture of glass fibre sheeting. The next time you see a luxury yacht, trust us when we say it started life looking like a giant reel of cotton! Pupils also saw performance car bonnets and other car bodyworks pressed out of single sheets of carbon fibre from a machine that resembled something out of a movie. The factory tour ended with a visit to the development labs, where Gurit chemists develop products for customer needs. We can’t go into any more details here as what the group saw was top secret, but you might find what was seen both on a battlefield and a luxurious dining table. 

Next, our groups went into the testing lab to see their 3D print coupons being stress tested (i.e. bent and stretched) to see under which force they gave way. They tested PLA and ABS coupons with different percentage infills and fill patterns before moving on to a team building exercise where they took part in some team problem solving activities. This was really interesting as it brought focus to the next stage of our pupils’ 3D bridge project. 

All in all, the visit was incredibly interesting; those who attended could do the whole visit several times and keep learning something new about Gurit and the team that work there. It really was inspiring to see the absolute passion and dedication of the team at Gurit who gave up their morning to show us around, for which we are most grateful. We extend our sincere thanks to Kieran Ward, Amy Moram, Lee Jacobs and Josh Murray for their valuable time in providing this exceptional experience to our pupils.