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Hennecke (Lawrence, PA, US) announced June 7 it has been awarded a contract for a combined production plant for manufacturing wet shot and HP-RTM applications by Chinese composites company PGTEX (Changzhou, China). 

The plant will be put into operation in the PGTEX factory near Shanghai, where production will start next year in conjunction with a 3600-tonne Schuler press. PGTEX has been given the task of developing a hybrid carbon fiber/glass fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP/GFRP) hybrid car body for a Chinese electric car and putting it into large-scale production.

The heart of the production plant is the high-pressure STREAMLINE metering machine from Hennecke. Here the modern metering system is fitted with a multipoint hydraulic gauge. This enables two mixheads to be connected within the plant. The first mixhead is applied as a HP-RTM mixhead and is fixed to a mold inside the press to inject the reactive material directly into the closed mold and thus infiltrate the fiber fabric. The second mixhead is fitted with a wide shot dispenser and is controlled by a robot which in turn allows a resin to be automatically applied to the fiber fabric outside the press. 

The use of two mixheads allows for switching between the two technologies to produce different fiber composite components on one plant. While the HP-RTM process is primarily used for producing complex 3D components, the wet shot process is designed for the production of extensive and less complex fibre composite components.