Send an inquiry Order newsletter Composite Materials Composite material design and engineering services Etteplan has a solid and broad competence in the field of design and engineering of composite materials. Our services will help you bring your product to a new level of performance. Be it for application in an automotive or aerospace product, or even in the manufacturing and automation of general industry, a solution where composite materials are involved will boost productivity and add customer value.
Key Benefits Lighter, more slender design Improved fatigue properties Decreased parts catalogue Integrated functionality in a one-shot design What is a composite material and why do I need it? A composite is a non-homogeneous solid material consisting of two or more different materials that are mechanically bonded together. Each of the different components retains its characteristic properties. In general, the structure of a composite material consists of two phases - matrix and reinforcement. The matrix is a continuous phase while the reinforcement is a discrete phase. The task of the reinforcement is to give the composite material strength while the matrix gives the material its external shape and transfers load to the reinforcement. There is a clear interface between matrix and reinforcement, but the components work together to give the material a combination of desirable properties (e.g. stiffness, strength, weight, high temperature performance, corrosion resistance, hardness, conductivity, etc.) that cannot be achieved single-handedly by the individual components. In essence, composites are created when two or more materials or phases are used together to provide a combination of properties that cannot be achieved otherwise. Fibers and matrices come in different qualities and prices. Glass fibers have approximately twice the density of carbon fibers and thus lower specific mechanical performance, but have interesting properties such as microwave transparency suitable for e.g. radar applications. The ply book, defining the stacking sequence of the lamina, defines the properties of the complete material. Manufacturing solutions include filament winding, suitable for tubes and semi-cylindrical geometries, prepreg sheets where the fibers are impregnated with resin, as well as dry fiber mats used together with a pre-heated liquid resin in resin transfer molding (RTM) .
Our offering At Etteplan, our personnel come from different sectors of industry. We have a broad range of experience from projects integrating composite material in existing products, as well as designing the best performance from a clean sheet. We can act as your engineering partner in the trickiest parts of a project. We can also take full responsibility all the way from the concept phase to the completion of your product. Because no two challenges are the same, we work with state-of-the-art software in CAD and FEA, incorporating topology optimization and stress analysis in our projects, to provide the best possible solution in your project. At our facilities in Linköping, Sweden, our prototype workshop helps us concretize our concepts in an early stage of every project. We have the tools necessary to make prototypes and even small series of any design, such as hand layup, vacuum bagging and curing. Tooling is manufactured in our SLS 3D-printer. When going into an industrialization phase, our carefully selected manufacturing partners will help you scale up the developed product into larger batches. Case studies Race car seatOriginally created from a milled aluminum structure. Objectives were reduced weight with maintained or improved crashworthiness, defined as small displacements at critical interface points where the driver's body is extra sensitive.
