FORMAX, the manufacturer of carbon fibre and speciality composite reinforcements, officially opened their 5,000m² Automotive Production Facility at the company’s headquarters in Leicestershire. Local MP, the Right Honourable Mr Andrew Robathan, was invited to publically open the new premises alongside Oliver Wessely, FORMAX’s Managing Director.

 

This latest expansion, worth €2.5million, is part of FORMAX’s on-going investment to deliver highly optimized carbon multiaxials to manufacturers of high volume Automotive programmes.

 

Whether it is Class A body panels, BIW structure or impact resistant long fibre reinforced parts that are required, the new 35 metre multiaxial machine will allow Automotive OEM’s and Tier 1’s to design a bespoke fabric or preform to fit both the structure being built, and the manufacturing process; thereby ensuring a fast, cost effective and efficient conversion of carbon fibre into parts.

 

The machine is equipped with three axes, capable of laying ply angles from 20° through to 90° with both in-line and off-line spreading technology, allowing engineers to specify larger, lower cost, carbon fibre tows, with ply weights starting from just 50gsm.

 

An additional feature of the machine is that it is equipped with electronic pattern cams. This facilitates the creation of fabric specific stitch patterns, which combined with FORMAX’s extensive research into simulating drape, gives the company a unique capability to tailor fabric for specific parts.

 

The local MP for South Leicestershire, the Right Honourable Mr Andrew Robathan, commented: “FORMAX is a very impressive and forward thinking company and it is great to see the business committed to the development of innovative technologies. The level of expansion they have undertaken in recent years and the positive effect this has on the UK manufacturing industry as a whole is very encouraging.”

 

Oliver Wessely, FORMAX’s Managing Director, conducted a tour of the new and existing facilities to industry guests and remarked: “As a key supplier to the Automotive Industry, we believe this investment lays the foundations for the next phase of FORMAX’s development as the move towards light-weighting, and consequently carbon fibre structures, gathers pace”.