Development of manufacturing processes of hybrid structures made of recycled thermoplastic material with unidirectional inserts

One of the most important challenges in the automotive field is to deal with the new regulations regarding the material’s recycling, following the guidelines of the Circular Economy, without losing properties. The hybridization of parts of recycled material combined with continuous fiber inserts could be a solution to this problem. Within the framework of the ZeKonp project, a study and optimization of the manufacturing process variables of compression moulding of hybrid structures with unidirectional tape inserts. has been carried out The starting material has been a plate of a semi-finished hybrid of GMT material obtained by scraps of UD tape from production waste. The reinforcement has been placed with a Multilayer automatic taping equipment. In order to optimize the process, variables such as the arrangement of the material, temperature and compaction pressure, the strategy and speed of deposition of the strips and the welding process of the materials have been studied. In addition to the reuse of the materials, the process and life cycles of the final product has also been taken into account in order to reduce the environmental impact throughout its life cycle