JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #109 - November/December 2016 - 25

Organo-sheet evolves from niche products to standard series production

Thin organo sheet:
a breakthrough in
lightweight engineering
The production cell in GK's technical
centre may also be used by semi-finished material manufacturers for trials
under realistic conditions in order to
optimize the application properties and
processing behaviour of organo-sheet.
One of the purposes of such trials, for
example, is to develop new but still
easy-to-handle organo-sheets. GK has
already carried out a comprehensive
project of this kind on behalf of BASF
SE, Ludwigshafen (Figure 5).
In addition to mould design and construction, GK also offers help and support both with the development of
components and with process layout
design. While tier 1 suppliers are still
lacking experience in organo-sheet
production technology, GK has already
developed and built a multitude of
moulds for different validation parts for
processors, end users and semi-finished
material manufacturers, and has also
ascertained in its technical centre the
necessary processing parameters for the
widest diversity of process variants.
An exemplary result of such a collaboration is the development and manufacture of a door module prototype (Figure 6) for which GK worked in close
collaboration with Brose Fahrzeugteile
GmbH & Co. KG, Coburg, a leading
and innovative tier 1 supplier to the
automotive industry. The processing
problems associated with organo-sheet
are generally threefold: gently thermoforming the organo-sheet in the mould
without damaging its fabric structure,
integrating fastening elements and apertures and, in the subsequent injection
moulding process, producing mouldedon reinforcing ribs and an exact edging
surround made of glass fibre-reinforced
polypropylene. In this particular application, an additional challenge was
the extremely narrow process window
necessitated by the single-layer organosheet.
The LIPA team had already given a

practical demonstration of the production of a lever in a mould developed
by GK at K 2013. This lever consists
of two organo-sheet blanks of different
thicknesses (0.5 and 1 mm), which are
bonded together in a small overlapping
area. This bonded area, which is additionally strengthened by an indented
reinforcement, will reliably withstand
the expected load. The moulded-on
bearing eyes and other function elements are produced by means of a
process developed by Arburg GmbH
+ Co KG, Lossburg, and the SKZ German Plastics Center, Würzburg. This
particular application drew attention
to several decisive innovations for the
economic and functional efficiency of
the process, e.g. maximizing the lightweight factor with the aid of organosheets of different thickness along
with the cost and practical advantages
of long-fibre direct injection moulding.
Market requirements
and demands
Key to the success of lightweight components manufactured from organosheet are the economic efficiency of
the production process and the convincingness of the technology used.
Current solutions to the problem
posed by the manufacture of lightweight components should therefore
meet the following market requirements and demands:
- Cost-optimized deployment of materials, i.e. the use of organo-sheet
blanks of different thicknesses and
geometries, enabling the component
structure to be adapted as optimally
as possible to the direction of the load
acting upon it;
- additional
function
integration
through combination, during the
process, with systems for the integral
forming of apertures and fastening elements without causing any damage to
the reinforcing fibres;
- increased process efficiency through
heating systems that reduce cycle time
but still ensure gentle handling of the
No109 November - December 2016

material, e.g. heated robot grippers.
As early as the pre-development stage,
a close interdisciplinary collaboration
between the material and machine
manufacturers, the automation specialists, the mould maker and the end
user is absolutely essential for the design and development of a stable production process.
Special attention should be paid to the
fact that existing (metal) parts may on
no account be replaced by lightweight
structural components of identical
size and shape. The entire structural
assembly should be carefully analysed
and a new solution should be found.
To this end, it is necessary, from the
very outset, to take into account as
many material, production and application related requirements and/
or boundary conditions as possible.
This development approach has been
successfully practised by GK with its
specialist partners for many years. The
above-mentioned seat pan project, in
which GK operated as a tier 1 supplier, is the most recent testimony to the
company's outstanding performance.
Georg Kaufmann Formenbau AG will
continue to take up the challenges of
the market, not least with local, load
path-oriented reinforcements, sandwich structures with continuousfibre-reinforced top layers as well as
combinations of different lightweight
technologies. The company's comprehensively equipped Tech-Center will
be the basis for dedicated, rapid and
cost-efficient developments, covering
both basic research and applicationspecific solutions.
More information:
www.gktool.ch/index.php/en/
Contact:
c.goetze@gktool.ch
References
[1] Kaufmann, R.; Bider, T.; Bürkle, E.:
Prozessintegration: Leichtbauteile mit
Thermoplast-Matrix. Kunststoffe 101
(2011) 3, p. 106-109

/ jec composites magazine

http://www.gktool.ch/index.php/en/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #109 - November/December 2016