Voith Composites partnership with Gazechim Group delivers Carbon4Tool tooling system to Europe
With Gazechim Group as the European distributor, Voith hopes to empower faster, easier and more effective CFRP tool manufacturing via its next-generation technology.
The Voith Composites and Gazechim team at a recent training workshop work with Voith's Carbon4Tool system. Photo Credit: Voith Composites
Voith Composites (Garching bei München, Germany), a Composites 4.0 technology company and developer of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) stacks in the Voith Group, is partnering with Gazechim Group (Occitanie, France) for the pan-European distribution of Voith’s prepreg CFRP tooling product, Carbon4Tool.
Gazechim Group is an established leader in the European composites industry, supporting and supplying leading manufacturers in Europe with advanced composites materials for creating parts for the automotive, aeronautic and other industries.
Carbon4Tool is a multi-layer CFRP tooling system, supplied in pre-cut tiles. It is made using Voith’s Composites 4.0 technology, the Voith Roving Applicator NextGen (VRA NextGen). A 1-8-1 skin configuration is achieved using a two-tile layer system, one facing up and one facing down towards the masterblock. These tiles consist of prepreg unidirectional (UD) tapes segmentally stacked and designed as a two-tile skin system, one for the surface and one for the backing, with each tile impregnated with low-temperature curing epoxy resin (learn more about Carbon4Tool in CW’s post-JEC recap).
“We are delighted to partner with Gazechim Group to propel Carbon4Tool in Europe,” Anna Pointner, CEO at Voith Composites, says. “Our composites factory and Voith Roving Applicator have been instrumental in our endeavors to develop innovative solutions for modern and efficient manufacturing of composites parts. We’re excited to team up with Gazechim Group to show European manufacturers how they can positively impact their composites manufacturing processes.”
The partnership will extend the reach of Carbon4Tool into the European composites manufacturing market, reportedly enabling producers to explore new avenues in composite lamination, reducing labor requirements, waste and energy consumption, and shortening production cycles up to 70%.
According to Jean Carol, business unit manager of Gazechim Group, “We partnered with Voith Composites because we believe in their product. Their Carbon4Tool material is a new 4.0 generation of tooling material that offers fantastic draping and contour performances despite its thicker design, which typically results in a time saving of up to 70% in the production of tooling forms and of up to 20% material waste reduction.”
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