Hot Drape Formers

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.

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

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.

Now Automated tape laying machines can accurately and quickly place individual layers of composite prepreg to form flat sheets which are then cut to shape with an ultrasonic cutter then taken to the Hot Drape Former.

What is Hot Drape Forming?

Hot Drape Forming is the process of shaping composite prepregs through the application of heat and vacuum.

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 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.  

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