Making the production of components in composite materials viable by the process of warm stamping

The development of new components that have a structural commitment and still achieve mass reduction is becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated materials for production for the automotive market for commercial and passenger vehicles. To achieve this level of demand the use of composite materials such as carbon fiber, glass fiber or a compound of the two has become a reality, however the production rate was still considered a problem for medium volume parts (up to one hundred thousand parts per year). The work demonstrates the construction and simulation of a PoC (proof of concept) using these composites in a warm stamp process where the material a thermoset composite plate is preheated to the working temperature, then it is inserted in a tool preheated stamping, remaining closed for a few minutes where the material is consolidated and then the part is extracted already cured without the need for cooling, thus ensuring the projected production tackt compared to the autoclave curing process that can take hours. The PoC was designed with the aim of evaluating stamping conditions such as: spherical conformation, constant cross section and depth reduction, characteristics that are considered classic problems of the stamping process. Therefore, the work presents a viable proposal to produce items for the automotive market for commercial and passenger vehicles.