A positioning member for positioning a semifinished product on at least one positioning means in a processing plant for processing the semifinished product. The positioning member may be connected to the semifinished product and may be equipped with at least one arranging element for contacting the positioning means. A semifinished fiber product includes at least one component area forming a component as well as at least one overlapping area for arranging a positioning member. A method for preparing a semifinished product that is arrangeable at least in a processing plant for processing a semifinished product.

End of arm tooling system and a method for manufacture is provided. The end or arm tooling system provides automated material handling, part manipulation, pre-forming and transferring of a pre-impregnated carbon fiber material. A robot is connected to end of arm tooling for automated material handling and transfer operations from at least a lower preform tool system where light compression is applied to a molding press. The end or arm tooling system includes a cured silicone membrane as well as vacuum and air blow off, allowing for robotically preforming, picking up and dropping-off pre-impregnated carbon fiber materials which are notoriously sticky and difficult to handle.

A connection system for connecting a semifinished product to a positioning member for at least positioning the semifinished product on at least one positioning means of a processing system for processing the semifinished product. The connection system has at least one joining device for joining the semifinished product to the positioning member and at least one placing means placing the positioning member on the connection system.

A composite wheel structure is made from a fiber-reinforced molding compound (FRMC) material having different resins at different axial sections of the wheel. The FRMC material can be provided as a roll of material, with different resin chemistries at different lateral sections, and applied to a wheel mold such that the different resin chemistries are provided at different axial sections. A single carrier film may have different resin chemistries at different sections, and chopped reinforcement fibers can be deposited across the width of the film. Multiple separate carrier films with different resin chemistries can be arranged side by side, and the chopped fibers added to the combined width. Reinforcing material can be provided in a prepreg and chopped and added to single carrier film at different width sections. The chopped fibers and different resins can be impregnated together to define the multi-resin FRMC material for use in the wheel layup.

A composite transfer cell and associated components and methods are presented. The composite transfer cell comprises a delivery system on a first side of the composite transfer cell; a tool on a second side of the composite transfer cell; and a composite transfer system between the first side and the second side of the composite transfer cell, the composite transfer system comprising a plurality of flipper arms independently movable in a vertical direction and rotatingly movable to lift and place a composite charge from the delivery system to the tool.

A material layup apparatus (100) for producing wind turbine blades using fiber plies (31), comprising a first gantry (1) with a transversal beam (11) extending over a mold receiving space (10). The first gantry (1) comprising at least one gripping unit (4a,4b) attached to the transversal beam (11) and being moveable both in the transversal direction (T) and in a vertical direction (V) so as to be lowerable into and retractable from the mold receiving space (10). Further, the material layup apparatus (100) has a second gantry (2) comprising a transversal beam (21) extending over the mold receiving space (10) providing a storage area (24) for a stack (3) of fiber plies (31). The second gantry (2) is adapted to be moveable in the longitudinal direction (L) into a ply-pickup position in that the storage area (24) of the second gantry (2) is arranged under the at least one gripping unit (4a,4b) of the first gantry (1) so that at least one ply (31) of the fiber plies (31) provided on the stack (3) of fiber plies (31) can be picked up by the at least one gripping unit (4a,4b). Thus, a transversal material layup that currently includes many process steps that include manual labor can be automated and by that productivity as well as safety can be increased.