Fraunhofer: Fibre composite for automotive and aerospace industries

Licensing opportunity

The Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology in Pfinztal, Germany, is looking to license a fibre-composite with enhanced strength and stiffness, useful for function-integrated hybrid lightweight construction.

The composite was developed following a manufacturing process established by KITe HyLite – Technologies for Lightweight Vehicle Construction, a Karlsruhe-based innovation cluster.

Production of this fibre composite differs from the traditional method of melting a plastic granulate and mixing it with a chosen fibre, usually glass or carbon. Jan Kuppinger, of the Institute for Chemical Technology, said: “By contrast, in our process we start with the basic constituents of the polymer material, which have the same fluid properties as water and therefore wet the individual fibres much more efficiently.”

This process is energy-efficient because the polymerisation occurs at 160 degrees Celsius, a temperature below the melting point of the final polymerised thermoplastic. 

This composite has other advantages, says Kuppinger: “The most important requirement when producing high-performance fibre composite materials is that the fibres should be laid down in the direction subject to the highest stresses and that they should be adequately wetted by the matrix material. Our process enables us to achieve a high fibre content of between 50 and 60 per cent by volume – a far higher ratio than that obtainable using other thermoplastic techniques.”