Development of a technology for large scale production of continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites

New highly economical process technologies for long-fiber reinforced thermoplastics such as the LFT-D process are the current trend of the market in the automotive industry in Europe. The next step on the way to enhanced LFTs is the use of engineering thermoplastics (e.g., PA66, SAN and PBT) as well as co-molding with local reinforce ments and tailored fiber placement [1, 2, 3, 4]. The process described in this paper shows how continuous fiber reinforcements such as fabrics, profiles, and preforms are co-molded with an LFT material in one step (Tailored LFT). Process parameters for a sufficient bonding of the thermoplastic preform with LFT-material as well as an example of an automotive application are given in the paper. A pilot-scale production plant has been built to demonstrate the ability of serial production. Thermoplastic Composites, LFT-D Technology,.