Case Study
HybridTec
PIEP, in conjunction with national companies Mptool and The Rapid Manufacturing Center DT2, has developed an innovative demonstrator, in thermoplastic composite with low-cost technology. The development of the HybridTec project made it possible to produce a horizontal structure of a car seat, using injection moulding technology, where the CFRTs thermoforming process is integrated and the thermoformed material overmoulding process with the incorporation of metallic inserts.
Hybrid Injection Moulding (HIM) technology allows the production of components made of plastic material and other materials (such as metals, ceramics, composite materials, or thermoplastics reinforced with continuous fibers) in a unified product. This allows the production of very complex, highly resistant to load, and low-cost multi-component products. In these multi-component parts, the properties of different materials can be combined.
In this project, this “organic hybrid” technology involved heating a plate reinforced with continuous fiber impregnated with a thermoplastic material (PA, PP, PBT, PEEK, PES, etc.) and placing it in an injection mold, where it acquires a three-dimensional shape, and then overmoulded with more thermoplastic material (without reinforcement or reinforced with fiberglass). This metal replacement technology is an alternative “hybrid” composites (plastic-metal) reducing the total weight of molded parts by 30-50% compared to metal. Its strength-weight ratio is also dramatically improved compared to metals – twice the steel and three to four times higher than a thermoplastic reinforced with injected glass fiber.
The technology focused on the production of large series, as being the mid-range automotive market, where it was possible to obtain a product with a lower cost through the use of lower-cost materials and automated processing technology. The product has even better performance in terms of safety, vibration, and noise.
The innovative solution is characterized by high integration (reduced number of components), reduced weight (41%), and reduced production costs (13%), compared to metallic solutions, thus opening up new development opportunities that extend beyond the automotive sector.
