Polyamide composite sheet shapes up as weight saver
Lanxess (Leverkusen, Germany) is expanding its leading position in fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites for lightweight construction applications. Extensive investments have already been made ranging from development of custom materials such as polyamide (PA) composite sheets, through development of simulation methods and the determination of characteristic material values, to component testing. Further, project management is being expanded to support both Lanxess customers and their customers in developing innovative composite components.
October 20, 2011
Lanxess (Leverkusen, Germany) is expanding its leading position in fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites for lightweight construction applications. Extensive investments have already been made ranging from development of custom materials such as polyamide (PA) composite sheets, through development of simulation methods and the determination of characteristic material values, to component testing. Further, project management is being expanded to support both Lanxess customers and their customers in developing innovative composite components.
Lanxess has developed HiAnt polyamide model support using polyamide composite sheet hybrid technology for mechanical tests, such as the three-point flexural test. |
"In view of the trend towards lightweight electric cars and lightweight, fuel-saving motor vehicles, we are concentrating intensively on composite sheet hybrid technology based on PA. Compared to pure metal, or metal/plastic hybrid designs, this technology offers great potential for saving on component weight," explains Hartwig Meier, head of Product and Applications Development in the Semi-Crystalline Products business unit at Lanxess.
Lanxess' expertise in thermoplastic lightweight construction solutions builds in part on the plastic/metal hybrid technology used to fabricate, for example, front ends, brake pedals and pedal brackets. Hybrid components are usually 20-30% lighter than their pure steel counterparts while offering the same performance. Even more weight can be eliminated if the sheet metal is replaced by lightweight polyamide composite sheet reinforced with continuous fibers, shaped in accordance with hybrid technology and back-injected with polyamide. This cuts component weight by another 10% over aluminum hybrid designs. Even greater savings are achieved compared to hybrid components with steel inserts. "We see great potential for polyamide composite sheet hybrid technology in the production of door sills, B pillars and seat cross-members," Meier says.
Lanxess is now capable of simulating all the process steps in polyamide composite sheet hybrid technology. Recently, the company succeeded in simulating the extremely complex processes involved in shaping polyamide composite sheet. "Now we can not only calculate locally varying fiber alignments in a molded polyamide composite sheet, we can also determine when multiple folds will form during shaping, how the semi-finished product is best positioned in the mold and the limit conditions for thermoforming," Meier explains. The locally varying fiber alignments must be known input parameters for mechanical structural analysis in integrative simulation, so that anisotropic material behavior can be taken into account in the component design.
Lanxess conducts its own, complex experiments to determine the characteristic material values required to simulate various process steps and analyze mechanical structure. Recent investments included a large tensile testing machine to determine, for instance, crash-relevant characteristic material data for polyamide hybrid composites in accelerated tensile strength at break experiments. "In collaborative projects, we incorporate these characteristic values and subsequent calculations in the component design process. These services are part of HiAnt, our competence brand under which we have pooled our expertise in materials, design, simulation and process engineering," says Meier. Customer service associated with HiAnt includes material selection support, manufacturing cost estimation, CAE calculations, mold filling, warpage minimization, mold construction, component testing and assistance in starting up full-scale production.-[email protected]
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