ICD Expert Lecture SS 2012
Lunch Time Lecture
29.06.2012 - 12.30 pm
Hörsaal 1.08, K1, 1.OG
Keplerstrasse 11, 70174 Stuttgart
Bill Pearson is Technical Director of North Sails, the world’s largest sailmaking firm, responsible for technology and global materials development. He has overseen the development of the one piece moulded sails (3DL), and now their latest technology for fiber/resin composite sails (3Di). With North Sails he has been at the forefront of the intersection between textiles, composites, and fibrous systems for performance applications. He is a leader in the emerging seamless integration of hard and soft structures, and has a keen interest in pursuing cross-platform application.
Bill writes frequently for various sailing publications on technology and composites, most recently a six part series in Seahorse International Sailing on the intersection between Textiles and Composites and how North Sails technologies are now used in Formula One cars. Outside of the marine industry he has worked on 3 projects with Greg Lynn incorporating sail technology and materials into GLF designs, and contributed a chapter to Lynn’s last book Composites, Surfaces, and Software. In 2012 he helped develop and teach a new graduate course at SCI-Arc entitled Textile Tectonics, part of the new Emerging Systems and Technologies curriculum.
A trained sailmaker and a former professional yachtsman who has competed in most of the world’s major Ocean Races, including the Whitbread Around the World Race, and a number of sailing expeditions to remote parts of the world. He has worked with North Sails for 22 years in many capacities internationally. Pearson has a BS in Management from the University of South Carolina, and currently divides his time between San Francisco, CA and Incline Village, Nevada.
North Sails and the North Technology Group are the world leaders in the sailmaking industry, but also increasingly in high performance composites where the highest end applications demand very thin and light membranes or structures. The company has developed large surface area (up to 500 sqM) articulating and reconfigurable 3-Dimensional moulds, where the specificity of the design and technique is representative of the most radical advances in the field of textiles today, even as the technology approaches maturity.
With the articulating mould technology comes automated fiber placement and a host of fabrication robotics and manufacturing strategies for the “mass customization” of fairly large scale flexible tension membranes, where the bespoke placement of the fibers reflects the anticipated wind forces and variations in the stress field, and optimizes locally for strength and stiffness. A new technology development under at NTG is producing the lightest and thinnest pre-preg UD filament tape available in the world today, and this technology is finding its way in Formula One cars and light aircraft.