Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPTResearch project "E-Profit"
Lightweight components of fiber reinforced materials offer a large potential to reduce the energy and material demand in technical systems under the same or better conditions. For intersectoral practice in sectors like transportation and machine building is the manufacturing of FRM through conventional reinforced matrix-systems (thermosets), with glas fibre (woven fabrics) and because of the molding processes (injection and autoclave processes) too energy-, time- and manpower intensive.
Therefore we develop together with our partners in the "E-Profit" project a resource-efficient production of FRP lightweight components under the usage of thermoplastic matrix-systems. The objective is an reduced cycle time of the process chain for an energy efficient manufacturing of load-dependent and waste optimized organic sheets as well as their forming, functionalization and trimming. Additionally the project partners develop systems for an integrated and FRP oriented quality-assurance and an automated handling for a stable production.
An automated system for the manufacturing of load-dependent, large scale series-production and waste optimized tailored composite blanks is at the moment not available on the market and will therefore be realized in the "E Profit" project as a production facility for the first time. The multifunctional tool will eliminate the described disadvantages in the current production of lightweight structures in a integrated and shortened process chain.
To achieve this goal we develop together with our project partners a production line and the appendant manufacturing chain -from semi-finished parts to finished parts- in several subsystems:
- Resource efficient manufacturing of load-dependent and waste optimized tailored composite blanks (energy, material, manpower)
- In-Situ forming, trimming and functionalizing of load-dependent and waste optimized organic sheets
- Cross-process integrated quality assurance systems
- Automated handling of semi-finished parts, inserts, inlays, and finished FRP-parts
- Large scale-capable production of representative FRP lightweight components
Project partners
- Magna Seating (Germany) GmbH / Vogelsitze
- Göppel Bus GmbH, Nobitz
- BOND-Laminates GmbH
- PROFIL-Verbindungstechnik GmbH & Co. KG
- Jacob Plastics GmbH
- t+h ingema Ingenieurgesellschaft mbh
- WZL GmbH
- Steinbichler Optotechnik GmbH
- SONOTEC Ultraschallsensorik Halle GmbH
- ASS Maschinenbau GmbH