Hot Drape Former

Composite materials are ideal for creating strong lightweight structures as they have a high strength to weight ratio and stiffness but have the drawback of high fabrication costs.  Labour intensive manual lay-up of the composite layers is a key contributor to these high costs.

Carbon fibre composite parts are produced by laying up multiple layers of prepreg.  Abrupt or complex contours have needed to be formed by manually laying up the individual layers of composite material such as  required for Stringers and C beams.

The Lam-Tech Hot Drape Former addresses these points with fast efficient forming of parts.

Our Hot Drape Forming machines allow multiple ply lay-ups to be formed into shape quickly and easily.  They are designed to form the carbon fibre by allowing the individual plys to slip against each other and produce accurate parts free from any stress wrinkling (Marcelling).  The infra red heating used heats the carbon fibre quickly and evenly resulting in reduced production times and is zoned to give uniform heat distribution. 


Some of the advantages offered by our range of machines:

• Strong construction and reliable performance.

• Thermally stable working area created by multiple heating zones.

• Accurate automatic and manual control over all program parameters.

• User friendly control console with Ethernet connection for off line programming.

• Large capacity electric vacuum pump with fully automatic control.

• Built to last with standard 2 year warrenty.

• Low maintenance.

• Custom machines available on request and based on our experience of providing over 5,000 machines worldwide,

• CE certificated.

• Fast installation times, standard machines designed to be shipped assembled with only electrical
connection and fitting cover panels required on site.


Some composite components can be fully cured in the press, out of autoclave,  depending upon material specification.

The hot drape former press can also be used for a variety of honeycomb bonding and debulking applications.