New Preforming Method and Binder for Carbon Fiber and Fiberglass Liquid Molding Processes. Daniel T. Buckley Manager of CompForm R&D American GFM

Transcription

1 New Preforming Method and Binder for Carbon Fiber and Fiberglass Liquid Molding Processes Daniel T. Buckley Manager of CompForm R&D American GFM

2 Outline Historical Preforming Methods Historical Binders CompForm CompForm Light Curable Binders New Method and Binders

3 Historical Preforming Methods and Binders Directed Fiber Oldest method and P4/3 Thermoset and Thermoplastic Binders Liquid, Powdered and String Thermoforming CompForm Light Curable Binders

4 CompForm Using Light 1 Very fast and Efficient Works on all Fiberglass Materials Engineering Fabrics Continuous and Chopped Strand Mats All Veils Works with Directed Fiber Preforming Selective Curing

5 CompForm Using Light 2 Energetic Stitching Complex Preforms Virtually no Heating of Materials Low Energy usage Flexible Cell Designs Binders are Compatible with all common Matrix Resins

6 Demo Machine

7 Viper Preform Machine

8 Viper Preform Machine

9 Viper Preform Machine

10 Large Preform Machine

11 Large Preform Machine

12 Large Preform Machine

13 Light Cure Disadvantages Single Step Thickness Limited Anything Opaque Liquid Binder Application Capital Cost of High Intensity Lighting

14 Ford Taurus Floorpan

15 ACC Pickup Box Tailgate

16 Need for Carbon Fiber and Hybrid Preforms

17 Carbon Fiber Preforming Light Cure has very limited application with Carbon Fiber Single layer or with Fiberglass Traditional Heating to cure or melt Binders is time consuming and wasteful of energy Direct Cure of Binder is most desirable

18 New Method and Binder Low energy Targets Scalable for low volume and High Volume Compatible with all fibers and resins No Thickness Limitations Usable with all Fiber Placement methods

19 New Method uses Anaerobic Binders Binder is a Liquid Cured by the removal of Air Vacuum is applied to the Material Can be cured under pressure by tool or held in place by the vacuum during cure Cycle times are much slower than UV but competitive to Heating processes

20 Test Equipment Simple Vacuum Chamber Capability to vary the level of the Vacuum Capability to elevate temperature

21 Vacuum Table and Fixture

22 Vacuum Fixture

23 Vacuum Fixture

24 Small Test Pieces

25 Small Test Pieces

26 Small Test Pieces

27 Anaerobic Advantages 1 Will work with all fibers There may be No Thickness Limitations Can cure all the way around cores and inserts Chemistry can be made to be compatible with most resins

28 Anaerobic Advantages 2 Flexible Processing Capable Progressive Preforming Subassembly routines Single sided or two sided tooling can be used Can be Combined with Light Cure

29 Anaerobic Disadvantages 1 High level of Vacuum Required May need to add some heat to speed up cycles No Selective curing as in Light curing Binder is aggressive and can be difficult to release from tool

30 Anaerobic Disadvantages 2 At this time a two part resin system Chemistry can be unstable Requires special resin handling equipment Binder is very expensive at this time

31 Problems Works very well when mass of binder is higher than practical Needs to work in very small discrete quantities Balancing reaction rate and stability

32 Results First test results gave cures in the 10 minute plus range Recent tests results gave cures in 2.5 minutes range Binder acts very stiff, therefore may require less binder than other processes More binder is required for Fiberglass than Carbon Fiber Works well with Hybrids of Reinforcements

33 Conclusion Works with Carbon and Glass fibers Appears to be close to commercialization Binder Development needs more work May be good option for Dry Fiber cutting Looks to be Scalable for all Production Rates Could be Major Breakthrough

34 Questions?