The UK’s National Composites Centre (NCC) is currently supporting Surface Generation UK in the application of their PtFS technology with a thermoplastic composites injection overmoulding process.
Surface Generation and the NCC together have successfully produced a number of carbon reinforced / PA6 automotive demonstrators which are due to be assessed by an automotive OEM. Each manufactured component weighs 1.2 kgs and comprises four continuous carbon fibre reinforced / PA6 composite inserts overmoulded with short carbon fibre PA6.
The NCC’s overmoulding equipment and the related facility cost was funded by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The NCC overmoulding cell supplied by Engel (Austria) features a horizontal 1700T press, injection barrel temperatures/pressures up to 420 °C and 2000 bar with a shot volume up to 6400 cm3.
In addition to the acquisition of the overmoulding cell, the NCC have also invested £690k of its High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVM Catapult) funding into a capability development project to further apply fundamental research across design, simulation, structural-analysis, manufacturing and physical/mechanical testing of high performance overmoulded structures.
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16 January 2019
