Recently, Austrian Engel and its partner Fill announced the development of a production line for the production of thermoplastic composite blanks. ENGEL combines the strip placement unit with the curing unit in an automated production line to more efficiently manufacture thermoplastic glass fiber and carbon fiber reinforced composite tape semi-finished products. According to Engel, the integrated process can produce 15-30 strips of special blanks every 1 minute, thus achieving high-cost mass production.
In order to achieve the shortest production cycle, the strip placement unit uses a pick-and-place process. The single strip is picked up, laid after visual inspection by the camera, and cyclically self-checked by closed-loop control, and finally stacked together by spot welding. The stacking largely depends on the accuracy of the strip positioning, so it is equipped with a high-resolution camera and two high-speed robot measurement systems.
Engel said that during the solidification process, the stacked strips are transferred to the heating station through the tool. The contact heater and the constant curing pressure help the billet reach the molten state, and then the billet is transferred to the cooling station for cooling. This fully automated process can keep the thickness of the laminate varying to meet the customized performance requirements of the user. In addition, since the blanks have acquired the required shape of the components during the stacking process, no intermediate trimming is required. The "customized" blanks can be processed and over-molded by the Engel organomelt process, and ribs or other components can be used to manufacture "ready-to-use" parts.