Benefi ts
stack up
Witney-based Shape Machining has
designed, manufactured and
successfully tested a carbon bre
suspension link for a high-end automotive
OEM. The design uses ShapeTex and epoxy
thermoset resin technologies to make a part
that can be pressed in short cycle times,
providing a 45% weight saving over a formed
aluminium component.
Managing director Peter McCool says:
“We’ve developed this combination of
technologies in house to exploit the growing
market for advanced structural composite
components.”
Shape provided all the engineering,
design, tooling and manufacturing services
to complete the project. This technology is
the intellectual property of the company and
is now being offered to the wider automotive
industry.
“By placing bre only where it is needed,
we create very ef cient structures that can
COMPOSITES IN MANUFACTURING PICK & MIX MATERIALS
tested to destruction several of these links
and I can con rm that they meet or exceed
all the targets. Our customer was particularly
happy with the safe failure mode that we
designed into the part.”
Retaining the presswork theme,
Hilbersdorf, Germany-based Asglaform
Composites, a specialist in composite parts
such as underbody panels, spare wheel
recesses and battery carriers, has started
producing components using its newly
installed 2,500 tonne up-stroking press from
Schuler (https://is.gd/uwired). There were a
number of technical reasons for selecting
Schuler, in addition to the proximity of the
company’s Erfurt site.
“As well as high press force, short
pressure build-up times are of particular
importance in the production of composite
parts,” explains project manager Thomas
Weidhaas. “The Schuler machine provides
An internal cavity pressure of 250-300
“We also need parallelism control to tilt
achieved.”
Shape Machining –
carbon composite
suspension links for a
high-end automotive
application
Moving to the rail sector, the world’s rst
carbon bre bogie (CAFIBO), developed by
West Midlands based ELG Carbon Fibre in
collaboration with the University of
Hudders eld’s Institute for Railway
Research, has been unveiled. The bogie,
which is made entirely from surplus and
recycled carbon bre materials, is lighter
than conventional bogies and optimises
vertical and transverse stiffness. As a result,
the bogie will reduce track wear and
infrastructure maintenance costs by
reducing vertical and transverse loads on
the rails.
The bogie is being developed as part of a
two-year programme delivered by a
consortium of companies comprising ELG
Carbon Fibre, Magma Structures, the
University of Birmingham and the University
of Hudders eld, with additional support from
Alstom.
Frazer Barnes, managing director of ELG
Carbon Fibre, says: “Replacing steel with
recycled carbon bre to produce a rail bogie
is a world rst. We hope to make recycled
carbon not only an attractive option for the
rail industry in terms of weight reduction, but
to eliminate waste and drive down cost.”
The aerospace sector has long-courted
composites and this trend seems set to
continue, as evidenced by GKN Aerospace
(https://is.gd/ayaxob). The company has
reached a major milestone in the Airbus-led
‘Wing of Tomorrow’ programme after
designing and manufacturing a mid-scale
The benefi ts of composite materials
are stacking up across a host of
sectors, including automotive, rail,
aerospace and nuclear, as Steed
Webzell explains
save a signi cant amount of weight for
customers,” adds McCool. “We successfully
better component surfaces can be
its full press force of 2,500 tons after just
0.14 seconds.”
bar ensures that the material is distributed
optimally throughout the die. For example, a
5 mm thick semi- nished product for an
underbody panel is compressed to 2 mm in
the nal part. Since the system can build
pressure quickly, there is no danger that the
semi- nished product in the die will stop
owing before taking its nal form.
the die,” says Weidhaas. “A tilt of only
0.5 mm/m ensures that a targeted ow of
material is generated in the die so that
The world’s fi rst
carbon fi bre bogie
www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets | April 2020 51
/www.machinery.co.uk
/uwired
/ayaxob