Compression moulding, including sheets and shallow geometry parts
Our Capabilities
In addition to our composite tubing capabilities, we manufacture parts using both conventional composite moulding techniques and bespoke manufacturing processes including:
By manufacturing in-house using our state of the art CNC machining capability we can assure quality throughout.
The Design Process
We have extensive in-house design software (including FEA capability) which allows us to optimise part geometry and laminate for a given performance specification. More details on this are given on our composite tube manufacture page.
Tooling design is critical to ensuring quality of the part produced therefore CFT can offer in-house design and manufacture of all necessary tooling. We are fully enabled with modern CAD/CAM software and operate advanced CNC machining capability.
Design for manufacture is key to us. We maintain this strong focus by using our depth of experience such that tooling is designed appropriately and efficiently, optimising cost and time for the customer.
We manufacture hard tooling in-house including steel, aluminium and composite moulds.
The Manufacturing Process
We have a number of heated platen presses for production of composite sheet and compression moulded parts. These are fully programmable with independent temperature and pressure control, and data loggers.
Our largest press has a capacity of 1800mm x 600mm and boasts integrated cooling for reduced cycle time.
Increasingly we combine this process with snap-cure pre-preg materials. This results in low cycle time and high production rate, leading to significantly reduced component costs and better utilisation of tooling.
Our bladder moulding capabilities revolve around hard tooling which can be heated either in our heat presses, our electronically controlled ovens, or using integral self-heating. This is an Out of Autoclave (OoA) technique that combines the use of advanced pre-preg materials and internal pressure, resulting in parts with extremely low void content.
Parts produced using this technique/method are often comparable to Autoclave production, but at a fraction of the cost.
We have 3 electronically controlled ovens including our long tube oven with has a 5m length capacity. In these ovens we often cure parts made using conventional open mould, vacuum-bag methods to be used in an assembly with tubes. This allows us to offer a turn-key solution, providing customers a ‘one stop shop’ for composite part and tube manufacture.
All produced parts can be trimmed to shape or have further features machined. Learn more about our machining capabilities here.
