COMPOSITES EUROPE 2012 Blog

“Form follows function” doesn’t always apply when it comes to consumer products. Because modern sports, household or electronic equipment has to be both functionally effective and also exhibit superior design and surface quality. Which is why plastics processors are investing so much time and effort into researching how to manufacture components which look and feel good.

With ColorForm, multiple-component parts - including those made from fibre-reinforced plastics - can be coated in a single process to give them a high-quality surface - as seen in this tool case.

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The Bodensee Racing Team, or in short BRT, is sponsored amongst others by Harke Chemicals this year. It is one of the teams that takes part in this year’s Formula Student, a competition where students from all over the world compete against each other in self-constructed racing cars. “The contact to the Bodensee Racing Team was established during a booth conversation at the Composites Europe 2009 in Stuttgart, on which we presented epoxy resin systems. After the students from Konstanz had introduced us to the project we immediately decided to sponsor the team with our epoxy resins”, says Dirk Forler, Managing
Director of Harke Chemicals GmbH.

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Epoxy resins are the elixir for numerous composite applications. They consist of polymers, which together with suitable hardeners produce a duroplastic plastic of high strength and chemical stability. When epoxy resin and hardener are mixed, after a specific time, curing of the originally viscose mixture takes place. Depending on the formulation and temperature, this time span can take a few minutes or may last several hours. In some cases, the curing time may also take several months.

The Krempel-Group, from Vaihingen, offers with the BD system, prepregs that are based on modified epoxy resins with high impact resistance and excellent dynamic properties. These can be processed into high strength structural components with all standard processes. The curing range is between 85 and 140 degrees Celsius, the maximum dimensional stability under heat is 125 degrees Celsius.

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Very light, very sturdy and very expensive. The characteristics of carbon fibres can be briefly described in this way. Consequently, their applications were primarily restricted in the past to aircraft and aerospace as well as to sports equipment. In addition, the so-called monocoque and other components of Formula 1 racing cars are produced using a carbon fibre reinforced plastic. Very large CRP components are employed in the wings and hull of aircraft.

After carbonization of the basic organic raw materials into carbon, the fibres are tensioned and thus achieve higher strengths and rigidities. Further processing takes place as rovings. This involves several thousand fibres which are combined into a strand and are then used as reinforcing fibres in woven fabrics. As low filaments (short fibres) they can be added to polymers. Suitably reinforced plastic components can be produced by means of processing equipment such as extruders or injection moulding machines.

To produce carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CRP), several layers of carbon fibres are embedded in a plastic matrix of epoxy resin, thermoplastics or ceramics. Analogue to glass-fibre reinforced plastics (GRP), press or autoclave processes for prepregs or fibre wrappings are used for production. CRP manual laminates are only employed for small scale runs or for individual production.

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