en.Wedoany.com Report on Mar 21st, At the recent JEC World exhibition, Austria's Engel showcased its newly developed fully automated production system for manufacturing drone composite rotor blades. The company has applied proven mass manufacturing principles to the field of lightweight composites, introducing a highly efficient integrated process. This process consolidates key steps such as reinforcement layer placement, molding, functional integration, and finished part removal within a continuous cycle inside an injection mold.

The core technology of this process is tape-sandwich injection molding, which employs a structural sandwich design consisting of carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic tapes and injection-molded short-fiber composites. The tapes form the load-bearing outer layers of the rotor blade. They are precisely placed in the mold and secured under vacuum, allowing the reinforcement material to be aligned along the load paths. This enables precise material usage exactly where structural performance is required.

In subsequent steps, core material made from short-fiber thermoplastic is injected between the pre-positioned tapes and bonds with the outer layers, forming a near-net-shape part structure. To further reduce weight, the core material undergoes chemical foaming, optimizing its lightweight potential while maintaining structural performance.

Ultimately, this fully automated system can produce lightweight and durable rotor blades where molding, structural functionality, and material bonding are completed in a single cycle. After final trimming, the parts are ready for use. This technology demonstrates advancements in both efficiency and quality for composite rotor blade production.