Curved pultrusion - the economic pull around the corner

With the help of the moving mold process, profiles with a constant radius can be manufactured on the Fraunhofer IWU pultrusion line. In comparison to conventional pultrusion, in radius pultrusion it is not the take-off unit but the die that performs the feed movement.

This meets all the requirements that also apply to the pultrusion of straight profiles: 

• high cost-effectiveness,
• very low scrap,
• high fiber volume content of up to 70%,
• very high material and profile cross-section diversity,
• very good accuracy and reproducibility.

The production of curved hollow profiles with multiple chambers is also technically feasible.The Fraunhofer IWU's (large) series production line can produce continuously curved solid and hollow profiles with a radius of 1500 mm or more.

The current research focus of Fraunhofer IWU is on making the moving mould process more flexible. Research is currently being conducted on the production of pultrusion profiles with variable radii to make more effective use of existing installation spaces and to enable the realisation of connection points.