At this year‘s JEC Europe in Paris, the leading trade show for the composites industry, SGL Group is exhibiting innovative applications for carbon fibre based materials right across the entire value chain.

These range from carbon fibres through textile products, preforms, and prepregs to finished CFRP components. The company is developing new product solutions for strategic growth industries, such as automotive, the wind energy sector, and numerous other industrial applications.

TowPregs

For the first time, SGL Group is exhibiting pre-impregnated TowPregs: fibre bundles from carbon or glass fibres with excellent winding behaviour and constant width that are especially suitable for challenging winding and lay-up processes, the company reports.

According to the manufacturer, the specific characteristics of SIGRAPREG TowPregs allow much more uniform lay-up to the highest degree of precision. TowPregs are also said to offer advantages over standard wet winding in terms of time and cost savings.

Lightweight construction innovations

Another innovation from SGL Group is continuous carbon fibre tow for fibre-reinforced thermoplastics.

Components with a thermoplastic matrix can be very readily shaped, repaired, and recycled, which makes an important contribution to sustainability and efficiency and opens up new possibilities for serial production, the company believes.

“With these new products, we are supplying solutions for the development and manufacture of competitive lightweight construction innovations perfectly tailored to the requirements, applications, and technical capabilities of our customers,” said Dr Andreas Wöginger, Vice President Product and Technology Management of the Business Unit Carbon Fibres & Composite Materials at SGL Group.

SIGRAPREG prepreg

Another highlight of our current developments is a SIGRAPREG prepreg with a newly developed transparent resin system, which is particularly suitable for visible components in the automotive and other sectors. The use of this prepreg in combination with the innovative SIGRATEX design fabric from SGL Group produces components with extremely high surface quality and a stylish appearance.

“At this year’s JEC, we are focusing on our products and especially our product innovations. We are particularly proud this year to present the revolutionary BMW i8 on our booth as a special eye catcher,” said Peter Weber, Vice President Sales and Marketing of the Business Unit Carbon Fibres & Composite Materials at SGL Group.

“The entire passenger cell of this vehicle is made from our carbon fibre composite materials. With this exclusive exhibit, we are not only highlighting our activities in the automotive sector but also demonstrating our expertise right across the composites value chain.”

www.sglgroup.com