A Film Casting Machine Line is with the facility to manufacture hot-melt thermosetting resin, cast resin film, and with provision to transfer/infuse the film between two plies of reinforcement fabrics.
The film casting line utilizes a resin film that is cast onto a carrier – typically a coated industrial paper. The fiber and film are passed through heated rollers which transfer the resin to the fiber and force partial impregnation of the resin into the fiber web. The solution provided in the scheme is alternative to prepreg can be for woven or non-woven webs, paper, or unidirectional tows to make tape.
The Film Casting and Sandwiching Machine eliminates the requirement of prepreg, thus, giving the advantage of instant use of processed sandwich in to laminates. The hot melt machine can produce UD Tape (unidirectional) or woven fabric prepreg depending on the machine configuration. The hot melt process typically uses pre-coated paper (film) – some customers prefer to introduce the resin in-line with the prepreg machine. CBI offers this on-line filming option. For certain applications this can save the customer from having to install two machines – Filmer and prepreg machine.
The scheme will be comprising of Film Casting & Sandwiching Unit, Hot & Cold Circulating System and Servo Controls. The scheme will allow the processors to manufacture only hot-melt resin film giving convenience for additional line of laminate processing.
The RFI composite processing replaces the conventional aerospace manufacturing technique of autoclave curing at much lower cost. As for epoxy system, resin-hardener mixing and its film casting are carried out under strict control, reproducibility and quality of fabricated parts are not reliant on operators.
To achieve better properties, resins can be modified using Nano fillers resulting in hybrid composites. Structural composites modified with nanofillers can be realized only through resin film infusion. Since the process involves a local flow of molten resin, uniform distribution of the filler particles is ensured which otherwise is impractical in conventional liquid composite molding techniques.