An apparatus for consolidating fiber-reinforced resin material comprises a housing, comprising a barrel and a receptacle. The receptacle comprises a base, a lid, positionable relative to the base and relative to the barrel such that the housing is in an open state or a closed state, and a de-gassing port. The apparatus comprises a gasket that is in contact with the lid, the base, and the barrel when the housing is in the closed state. The apparatus comprises a piston, movable between a retracted position, in which the piston, in its entirety, is in the barrel, and an extended position, in which a portion of the piston is in the receptacle and another portion of the piston is in the barrel. The apparatus comprises a seal, which is in contact with the piston and the barrel, and a drive system, configured to control movement of the piston.

During a manufacturing method, a preform is arranged with a plurality of grips. The preform includes a stack of a plurality of layers of material. The grips are disposed along a periphery of the stack. The preform is formed into a shaped body. The forming includes pressing a die against the stack and gripping the stack with the grips during the pressing of the die. The gripping includes asynchronously gripping the stack with at least some of the grips.

A composite laminate stiffener is formed to contour with reduced ply wrinkling using constrained creep forming. The tooling apparatus is provided with flexible cauls which constrain the stiffener during the contour forming process. The creep forming is carried out at a slow enough rate so that friction or shear resistance between the resin and fibers of the plies remains low enough that slippage can occur and significant compression stresses are not generated rate, allowing relaxation of residual stresses in the stiffener.

The present application relates to a mold for carbon fiber composite material. The mold comprises a first mold, a second mold, a frame mold and a plurality of stopping mold. The frame mold is disposed between the first mold and the second mold, and the stopping mold is disposed between the first mold and the frame mold. An enclosing space is defined by the frame mold, and protruding portions of the first mold and the second mold are protruded into the space. The stopping mold is pressed against the first mold and the frame mold. The carbon fiber composite material with a corresponding thickness can be conveniently produced with the mold of the present application by replacing the stopping mold, thereby being suitable to various fields of the application.

A method for making a molded composite includes the steps of providing a lower mold that has an upward depressed surface having first and second surface regions and an interconnecting region, placing a mold release film on the upward depressed surface to cover at least the first and second surface regions and the interconnecting region, placing a molding material on the mold release film such that the mold release film is disposed between the upward depressed surface and the molding material, and hot pressing the molding material by pressing a downward pressing region of an upper mold toward the upward depressed region of the lower mold so as to form the molding material into a molded composite.

According to one implementation, a composite material forming jig includes molds and a tilting structure. The molds are developable for laminating fiber sheets, after or before impregnated with a resin, in a developed state where the molds are developed. At least one mold of the molds is capable of being inclined relatively to another mold of the molds so that the laminated fiber sheets are shaped. The tilting structure is adapted to develop the molds when the fiber sheets are laminated and incline the at least one mold when the laminated fiber sheets are shaped.

An apparatus for consolidating fiber-reinforced resin material comprises a housing, comprising a barrel and a receptacle. The receptacle comprises a base, a lid, positionable relative to the base and relative to the barrel such that the housing is in an open state or a closed state, and a de-gassing port. The apparatus comprises a gasket that is in contact with the lid, the base, and the barrel when the housing is in the closed state. The apparatus comprises a piston, movable between a retracted position, in which the piston, in its entirety, is in the barrel, and an extended position, in which a portion of the piston is in the receptacle and another portion of the piston is in the barrel. The apparatus comprises a seal, which is in contact with the piston and the barrel, and a drive system, configured to control movement of the piston.

Provided is a method for manufacturing a fiber reinforced resin molded article capable of distributing the pressure without concentration on the vicinity of the resin inlet and so preventing the deformation of a preform, and such a manufacturing device thereof. The method lowers a lower core as a moving core in a lower mold (first mold) (away from a preform) to let resin flow toward the lower mold (first mold). This distributes the pressure concentrated in the vicinity of the resin inlet and prevents deformation of the preform.

The present invention relates to a method and mold (100, 110) for forming a thermoplastic composite (1) that has one or more inner openings (0). The present invention further relates to a thermoplastic composite (1) manufactured using such method. Typically, forming of a thermoplastic composite (1) is achieved using a mold (100, 110) comprising a first (100) and second (110) mold part that are moved towards each other for the purpose of forming the thermoplastic composite (1). According to the invention, the mold further comprises a third mold part (120) that is movably arranged around the one or more first mold parts (100). Furthermore, an additional step is used of clamping the outer part in between the second and third mold parts during the mutual movement of the first and second mold parts while allowing the one or more inner parts to move relative to the one or more first mold parts thereby increasing the one or more inner openings, respectively.

An apparatus for molding a part includes a plunger cavity, a plunger, and a mold cavity, wherein the plunger is oriented out-of-plane with respect to a major surface of the mold cavity, and first and second vents couples to respective first and second portions of the mold cavity. In a method, resin and fiber are forced into the mold cavity from a plunger cavity, and at least some of the fibers and resin are preferentially flowed to certain region in the mold cavity via the use of vents.