Our Facilities

• Long fiber thermoplastics (LFT) extrusion compression molding with 1.5” and 3.5” plasticator charge capability. This can be used to mold discontinuous LFT for a range of reinforcements such as glass, carbon, basalt, natural fibers in a range of thermoplastics such as polypropylene, polyethylene, polyamide, PEI, PEEK etc. Pellets with fiber length 3 to 25 mm are typically used.

• High speed Wabash Compression Press: Compression molding (150 ton)

• 350 ton injection molding with thermilator, 870 g shot weight, 890 x 890 mm platen size
• Twin screw multi-phase compounding and under water pelletizing line to produce pellets, tapes and rods. Light materials such as foams, carbon and natural fibers and additives compounding with a range of polymers such as polypropylene, nylon etc. The produced pellets serve as feedstock to injection and extrusion compression molding.
• Sheet Molding Compounding (SMC) line, 18” wide capable of glass, low cost carbon fiber (wide tows), basalt and recycled fiber compounding with polyester, vinyl ester, epoxy etc. Small lab scale trials (few pounds) to larger scale (>50 lbs) possible. Hybrid materials including continuous fabrics and SMC discontinuous fibers can be produced.
• Composite Recycling – 250 lbs per hour mechanical shredder for reducing composite scrap such as carbon, glass thermoset and thermoplastic materials. The reduced materials are sorted and post-processed into intermediates for composite parts production. Supporting equipment includes Pellets, Hammer mill and Pyrolysis furnace for recycling materials.
• Autoclave for composites molding – 800F temperature, 2.5 ft x 5 ft chamber for curing and processing of thermoset, thermoplastic and sandwich composite layups.
• 36” x 36” Vacuum diaphragm forming station with infrared heating station for rapid forming of unreinforced thermoplastics such as polycarbonate, polypropylene, ABS etc.
• Low Pressure Resin Transfer Molding – Metering, mixing and dispensing unit for polyester, vinyl ester and epoxy resins into closed cavity flex and hard molds. The viscosity of these resins in about 150 to 450 cps. Parts up to 40” x 30” have been produced. The bagging in this is reusable silicone bags produced in-house with a silicone spray unit.
• Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) – Single sided tool VARTM for producing large parts with disposable bagging. Used in non-conventional parts/shapes assisted with permeability measurements, flow modeling for prediction of vacuum and infusion lines.
• Composite fabric laser cutting – Dual head laser cutting for composite and multi-layered fabrics, preforming for precise cutting of glass, carbon, engineered fabrics. 63” width and any length materials can be precisely cut to specs using nesting and blanking software.
• Plate winding to produce composite plates from tows. Typically carbon, polypropylene, glass and basalt fiber tows have been converted to plates 12” x 12” size. These are then consolidated into test plates for characterization.
• Wet laid processing – hand sheet mold to produce mats of nominal 12” x 12” dimension with discontinuous fibers such as carbon, glass or hybrids of these with thermoplastic fibers such as olefins, nylon, PPS, TPU, natural fibers, PEEK etc. The mats are subjected to compression molding, vacuum forming etc.
• Roll forming – for production of continuous profiles of sheet metal and hybrid sheet metal-thermoplastic tapes. The equipment is under development and will be available for trials.
• Thermoplastics blow molding with 24 mm screw for blow molding of unreinforced thermoplastic components.
• Tooling: A range of tools that capture shape and material intent – examples such as flat plaques, hat-sine, V-grooves, ribs, bosses, steps, curvatures are examples of features of these tools. The tool sizes range from 6” x 6” to 24” x 24”. Please contact us for more details.
• Seat back rest tool 30”x18” with curvature, step and ribs to evaluate flow and molding of SMC, LFT and sheets/mats. Examples including molding of glass SMC, overmolding of glass with carbon fiber tapes, LFT and recycled carbon thermoplastic mats.
• Additive tooling molding in collaboration with Manufacturing Demonstration Facility

A suite of software is used for product development, process modeling, optimization, structural analysis and composite, sheet metal, bulk metal and hybrid applications.

Facility software includes but is not limited to-

• Materials Selection – CES Edupack/Granta, SAS for defect analysis
• Solid Modeling and Tooling- Solid works, Autodesk Inventor, Dassualt 3DS
• Process Modeling – Moldex 3D, PAM-RTM, PAM-FORM, Moldflow Advisor, Moldflow Insight, Optitex for processes such as injection molding, injection overmolding, stamping, draping, nesting, blanking, Nextrud, DEFORM, FASTFORM
• FEA, Thermal and Structural Analysis – ANSYS, Abaqus, Geona/MCQ, LS-DYNA, Noise and Vibration analysis

• Phase array Olympus Ultrasonics with 1 to 10 MHz frequency sensors, portable C-scan capability and software for layerwise defect analysis
• Dual channel Bruel and Kjaer Pulse vibration analyzer with mini-shaker, impulse excitation and range of force transducers and accelerometers
• 4-channel Mistras Acoustic Emission system for real-time failure monitoring
• 20 kN load frame with range of fiber characterization tools and ASTM/ISO/DIN mechanical and thermorheological testing, environmental conditioning. Standard fixtures for tensile, flexure, interlaminar shear, compression, compression-after-impact available for testing and characterization.
• Izod impact tester with 5-25 lb hammer for energy absorption of a range of materials
• Drop weight impact tower (under acquisition) for low velocity impact measurement
• Gas gun for high speed impact testing with capability of 1200 ft/s, 19 mm barrel with windows for high speed camera monitoring of penetration. The set up can be used for blunt impact such as sabot, hard balls to simulate 0.22, 0.30 and 0.50 caliber impacts.