JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #58 - June - July 2010 - 50

FEATURE

“Aeronautics”

Thermoplastics

Innovative thermoplastic stamp forming system
Pinette Emidecau Industries (PEI) has delivered a new thermoplastic stamp forming system to Ibaraki Kogyo, in Japan. This equipment is for stamp forming composite aircraft parts.
Quality and flexibility
WAYNE FOSTER
SALES MANAGER

PINETTE EMIDECAU INDUSTRIES

he machine is the latest generation of TP stamping systems designed and built by Pinette Emidecau Industries over the past few years. Since PEI is a custom builder of moulding systems, none of these systems are exactly the same and they can be used to form a variety of thermoplastics that include PPS/PEI/PEEK and PEKK. As an example, the systems range from 80 to 1800 metric tons in tonnage. The controls, platen sizes, daylights and strokes are not the same on all of these machines. The controls include recipe storage and complete traceability for quality control and web remote control maintenance.

20 years of experience
The company started building these TP stamping systems more than 20 years ago when a major European supplier of fighter aircraft approached PEI with the technical challenge to build an automated forming system to mould PPS thermoplastic material (for structural wing parts). The material needed to be heated in an IR oven to ensure very uniform heating of the complete blank. The challenge was to meet the requirement of transferring and stamping the parts in less than four seconds. To meet the quality requirements of the finished parts, the material should not be exposed very long to ambient temperatures outside the IR oven heating zones. To meet this objective, PEI builds the TP machines with a very compact designed system, with the IR oven attached to the forming press. This is also why PEI provides each TP machine with a very-high-speed transfer system with a very high press closing speed.

Because a very high quality material is used, efforts are made to reduce scrap by using custom-shaped blanks. The company has the capability to build custom blank-holding systems that can hold many different blank shapes using several different methods to install the blank holders in the transfer system. PEI has also been a supplier of qualified Stamp-forming equipment for composite aircraft equipment to many Tier parts. This process is used by Fokker to form J nose ribs for Airbus and is being used to form other air1 and Tier 2 aircraft craft parts. parts suppliers worldwide. To work with these aircraft industry suppliers, the company has built a strong, efficient and highly reactive maintenance programme that can provide both service and maintenance contracts worldwide. With its experience in equipment for the TP industry, the company hopes to continue building many more of these systems, as both Airbus and Boeing are striving to reduce weight in their fleet of aircraft. Accuracy, consistent performance and reliability are the targets of PEI equipment. The company has 25 years of experience in systems for both the aerospace and automotive industries and its employees can meet any forming needs. More information: www.pinetteemidecau.com

Focus
Pinette Emidecau Industries was established in 1863 and is based at Chalon sur Saône, France. Since its creation, the company has acquired experience in hydraulic presses (10-10,000 MT), automated press lines (ovens, drying chambers, transfer systems, etc.), robotic lines, engineering of complete lines, robot integration, turnkey automated lines, test benches (100-2,500 MT), tooling and services. The automated production systems it designs and manufactures serve for the processing of plastics, composites and sheet metal. The company is certified ISO 9001:2000 and exports its products worldwide.

jec composites magazine / No58 June - July 2010

http://www.pinetteemidecau.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #58 - June - July 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #58 - June - July 2010