JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #109 - November/December 2016 - 36

JEC ASlA awards
Bistrot chair: 100% organic composite materials and bio-based resins
Revology has reinvented the bistrot
chair, 100% made of organic composite materials and bio-based resins. All
the structural parts are made of thermoplastic braids reinforced with flax
fibre, using the RocTool process to
reduce the production cycle time. All
the transparent parts are made with
bio-based materials.
The Revology chair will be one of
the lightest chairs in the world, and
indestructible. Revology chose flax
composite materials not only for their
mechanical properties, but also to
highlight the natural beauty of this design chair.

The launch involved 18 months of de- Winner: Revology (New Zealand)
velopment to enable presenting the Partner: D2 Design & Development
Revology concept chair for the first (Australia)
time in March 2016, at JEC World.
The next steps include Kickstarter and
Indiegogo campaigns to presell the
products and organize the mass production and industrialization in three
factories (Europe, Asia and USA), in
order to deliver the chairs worldwide
within five business days.
There are about 300 million bistrot
chairs to replace. The Revology chair is
one of the lightest chairs in the world.
What's more, it is indestructible and
uses natural and sustainable materials.

Robotized cell for the creation
of dry fibre preforms without operator
To meet composite manufacturers'
need for more and more automation,
Techni-Modul Engineering (TME)
developed a robotized cell that can
create a preform made out of dry fibre
materials without operator intervention throughout the entire cycle. Dry
fibres were chosen to enable out-ofautoclave solutions.
TME designed and manufactured its
first RTM mould in 1988 and rapidly
specialized in this manufacturing process. The company conducted many
RTM projects and identified the need
to automate this process for various reasons. They also identified the
demand for robotized lay-up of preimpregnated materials, so the study
is being extended to the handling of
such prepreg materials once the protection film has been removed.
The innovation is related to the improvement of the composite part
manufacturing process. The added
value comes from the integration of
new functions, including intelligent

36

DESIGN

MANUFACTURING

automation and pick, place and fold
in a 3D shape.
The preform robot cell was developed for several reasons. While the
aerospace and automotive industries
are struggling to meet the production
rates required for the current backlog,
the robot makes it possible to reduce
the cycle time by a factor of 2, 3 or
4, depending on part geometries and
the manual layup process previously
used. It also ensures quality and repeatability by eliminating all potential errors.
The robot is programmed to pick,
place and fold the plies accurately at
the right place, whereas the manual
process involves as many chances for
human errors as the number of plies
to lay up. Even an experienced operator can sometimes be led into error by
executing his tasks quickly under time
pressure. Finally, as this solution can
replace the human operator, it also
avoids potentially harmful repetitive
movements.

jec composites magazine / No109 November - December 2016

Winner: Techni-Modul Engineering
(France)
Partner: Pascal Institute (France)
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #109 - November/December 2016
