Fraunhofer PYCO – Pilot Plant

Chemists, physicists, engineers and technicians of Fraunhofer sites in Teltow and Wildau as well as of the Chair of Polymer Materials of Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus – Senftenberg (BTU) are developing highly crosslinked polymers (thermosets) for all applications with particular reference to aviation, IT-technology and instrumentation.

Today, our work is particularly focused on lightweight composites and on micro- as well as optoelectronics: new (nano-)materials, prepregs, core materials, laminates, all kinds of fiber reinforced materials, sandwich structures, bistable displays, integrated optical devices and barrier layers.
The application of our thermosets is in the field of adhesives, coatings, varnishes, binders, inmolds and gelcoats, castings, foams, prepregs, Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) and pultrusion. The following properties can be designed into these resin systems: high flame retardancy, high fracture toughness, minimum volume shrinkage upon curing, fast and latent curing at a time, disbonding ability (e.g. with adhesives), barrier properties against water vapor and oxygen, adjusted thermal coefficient of expansion, adjusted refraction index, rework and recycling ability. As those properties are often in contrast to each other, we focus particularly on the combination and optimum balance of material properties like high Tg (Glass Transition Temperature) along with high fracture toughness in a single system, just to mention an example.

More information: www.pyco.fraunhofer.de

Companies: FraunhoferPYCO

Industries: Research

Technologies: Resin Transfer Moulding

Terms: Autoclave, carbon fibers, CFRP, composites, Fiber-reinforced Plastics, Fraunhofer Society (Organization), GFRP, Polymeric Materials, polymers, Prepreg, PYCO, Resin Transfer Moulding, resin transfer moulding (rtm), resin transfer moulding applications, resin transfer moulding machine, resin transfer moulding process, Thermosets