JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #95 - Special JEC Europe - March 2015 - 46

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Process

Machining centre for the serial production of carbon fibre parts
The innovation is a new machining
centre designed for the production of
carbon fibre parts using the fibre placement process. The fibre placement machining centre builds carbon fibre stacks,
which are then moulded. High-volume
production currently lacks a reliable
system that can handle these materials
with high efficiency and minimal material scrap. Fibre placement is the only
technology that significantly reduces
material scrap when producing shellshaped parts. Most technical applications
for lightweight construction, e.g. in the
automotive and aerospace industries, are
shell-shaped parts.
While textile production methods in
automotive applications may produce
more than 50% scrap, fibre placement
would result in less than 5% scrap
overall. Accordingly, fibre placement
offers the design option to produce parts

with variable wall thickness and local
reinforcements. Until now, there has
been no breakthrough in the use of fibre
placement in automotive production
cycles, due to the limitations of current
machines in regards to high-volume
production.
The existing equipment was solely designed for highly complex aerospace parts.
Due to the varying requirements of highvolume production, the design of a fibre
placement machining centre had to be
altered. This is the main reason motivating the project. The goal was to combine
the advantages of fibre placement with
the requirements of the automotive
industry; thus addressing the question of
how to create a robust production system
that can process low-cost carbon fibre
materials with minimal scrap. Following
these specific requirements, the design
was driven in the direction of a standa-

After completion of the list of requirements
and boundary conditions, initial composite designs were created by following the
methodical design approach. Available
material combinations with the best priceperformance ratio were inventoried and
classified. A test matrix was created in order
to investigate the mechanical properties of
the selected composite materials through
the use of a coupon programme. Based

lone fibre placement machining centre
that uses low-cost 'towpreg' materials
and produces a carbon fibre stack. These
stacks are easy to handle during the process and ready to mould into their final
shape. Therefore, the required know-how
was developed to combine the production requirements of both fibre placement with the material and the moulding
process.

Heavy machinery

Hybrid composite solutions for
heavy duty construction equipment
This innovative concept combines the
benefits of glass fibre-reinforced composite materials with the strength of
metals to form a robust, cost-effective
and lightweight solution for construction
equipment, represented by the frontloaded bucket of a wheel loader. Innovative
multi-stage co-bonding processes and
assembly techniques were applied in order
to create this optimized hybrid solution for
the heavy-duty sector.

Winner: BA Composites, a subsidiary of
Broetje Automation GmbH (Germany)

on the obtained data, FEM calculations
were carried out to optimize the initial
design. A cost model was created in order
to produce an overview of material/process
combinations with the costs per bucket as
a function of the series size. Based on this
overview, the two best performing combinations were translated into manufactured
prototypes resulting in heavy-duty hybrid
solutions by application and assembly of
innovative multi-stage co-bonded structural composite components. The test results
show that both variants achieved all the
determined requirements and boundary
conditions with a considerable margin.
Up until now, the heavy-duty sector -
including the construction equipment
branch - was not prepared for composite
solutions. However, this innovation proves
the benefits of composite solutions for
these types of components. Energy savings
and/or reduction of fuel consumption will

46 jec composites magazine / No95 March 2015

Winner: National Aerospace Laboratory
(Netherlands)
Partner(s): VABO Composites (Netherlands), Kuiken (Netherlands), Gurit
(UK), ICO.BV. (Netherlands)

become an important issue, also in this sector, as well as the reduction of manufacturing costs. The heavy-duty sector involves
a wide range of large-scale products and
equipment, creating a huge market potential for composites in this branch.

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #95 - Special JEC Europe - March 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #95 - Special JEC Europe - March 2015