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TTI to display CFRP producing technology at JEC World

21 Feb '19

2 min read

Curved lightweight bumpers made out of carbon and glassfibre using the Radius Pultrusion process./Pic: TTI

Pultrusion specialist, Thomas Technik & Innovation (TTI), is set to display its manufacturing technology that can produce carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) parts in high-enough volumes for the mainstream industry at JEC World, in hall 5, stand P80. The leading international composites experts show will be held from March 12-14, 2019, in Paris.

Visitors to TTI’s stand and the Automotive Planet will see a CFRP bumper (fender), 100,000 of which could be manufactured each year using the company’s innovative Radius-Pultrusion process, the company said in a press release.

“There are not many CFRP manufacturing processes that can do these numbers. Uniquely, this process enables the manufacture of curved and coiled profiles. In the normal pultrusion process you have a mould that is stationary and two grippers or a caterpillar that pull the fibres through a heated mould. In our radius-pultrusion process, we move the mould,” TTI sales engineer Sebastian Mehrtens said.

The mould grips incoming resin-impregnated carbon fibre material at the upstream end of the line, then moves downstream through a curve, curing the profile as it proceeds towards a stationary gripper. The gripper stays open as the cured profile is pushed through it towards an automated cut-off saw, and only closes when the mould reaches it. The gripper holds the cured profile in place while the die opens and returns upstream to pull and cure the next length of curved material.

Further to producing parts for customers on its radius-pultrusion machines, TTI is licensing the technology to others. For instance, the bumper to be shown at JEC World is a generic part manufactured by Thomas Technik customer, Shape Corp. It comprises a thermoset resin reinforced with carbon fibre veils and rovings.

Further, different profiles can be manufactured quickly and efficiently using just one radius-pultrusion line. With conventional pultrusion lines, it can take up to seven hours to switch from producing one profile to another. With a radius- pultrusion line, this process can be carried out in under an hour. Companies investing in a TTI radius-pultrusion line will also benefit from the company’s two decades of pultrusion expertise. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India