At the final meeting of the project "SKR-FVK" at our project partner DEKUMED in Bernau at the beautiful Chiemsee, the project partners once again proudly looked at the jointly achieved project results. In just two years, a new process variant for increasing cost efficiency and robustness in the automated production of fiber-reinforced plastic components on an industrial scale was validated. The successful completion of the project is due not least to the effective teamwork of all project partners.

The innovative approach of the film-sealed fiber preform can eliminate non-value-added process downtime. The Film-Sealed Compression Resin Transfer Molding process (FS-CRTM) was researched and industrialized in the project to demonstrate automotive FRP manufacturing with lower-cost low-pressure injection equipment and without costly presses. FS-CRTM makes it possible for the first time to develop modular and dynamic mold systems for automated FRP production. Likewise, the process robustness with regard to edge race-tracking of the preform was increased by passive flow control.

The Consortium would like to thank the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) for project funding within the framework of the "Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM)" under grant number ZF4004314TA9 as well as the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digitalization and Economic Location for funding within the framework of the "Coin- program line Networks - international".

Project partners
Alpex Technologies GmbH, DEKUMED Kunststoff- und Maschinenvertrieb GmbH & Co. KG, RAC GmbH - Riedmann Advanced Composite, Polymer Competence Center Leoben GmbH, Lehrstuhl für Carbon Composites - Technische Universität München