Diaphragm Forming of Thermoplastic Composites

Background

It is estimated that over 1,000,000 tonnes of fibre reinforced plastic products (FRP) are manufactured in Europe per annum. Approximately 85% of these FRP products are manufactured using thermosetting resins, such as polyester, vinylester, epoxy etc which have the following limitations.

• Solvent emissions during processing
• Poor recyclability
• Labour intensive moulding techniques
• Relatively long cycle times

Solution

In 2003, EPL completed a 2 year research and development project to design and develop a medium volume method of producing continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic composite components.

The process involves:

• Inserting fibre reinforced thermoplastic fabrics or sheets between 2 rubber membranes
• Heating the thermoplastic composite materials to their processing temperature
• Applying air pressure onto the rubber membranes to form the materials against a cold mould

Benefits

• Low cost capital investment
• Fast cycle times – circa 5 minutes
• Low cost single sided tooling
• No solvent emissions
• Automated/low labour

Commercialisation

The diaphragm forming machine is available to companies for research and development and prototyping purposes.

If you would like to know more please call: +44 (0) 1509 210027