Composite novelties from Hennecke at JEC Europe 2012

According to the company, thanks to continuous research and development and the modular expansion of the product portfolio in the field of PUR-CSM spray technology, Hennecke succeeds in identifying new areas of application for producing and using composites. The modular setup also has a positive effect when it comes to retrofitting production lines. The latest example for this is a new cutting unit for CSM processing plants with chopped glass-fibre metering system that has a ten times longer service life than other processes on the market, thus significantly reducing downtime, maintenance and costs. This is thanks to a new cutting process that needs neither a knife roller nor blades and therefore eliminates the main cause of downtime when cutting glass fibre rovings. Hennecke says the service life compared to standard cutters is increased by over 1000 % and furthermore the process is only interrupted when the rovings are changed. The formation of atomized spray depositions is prevented thanks to the unit's special geometry, which has been specially tailored to suit the company's spray mixheads.

According to Hennecke, special interest was also aroused by its High-Pressure-RTM (HP-RTM) process, an engineering approach that responds to the growing requirements regarding efficiency and ecology in the automotive sector. HP-RTM enables the manufacture of fibre-reinforced structural components. In contrast to the classical RTM process, this new technology allows the reactive mix to be quickly injected into the cavity. In combination with the right raw material system, this means that curing times are extremely short and optimised cyle times are possible for the whole process. This allows even high numbers to be produced in an appropriate way.