Patent Application
20250162202
This application claims priority to Taiwanese Invention patent Application No. 112144767, filed on Nov. 20, 2023, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
The disclosure relates to a puncture equipment, and more particularly to a puncture equipment for puncturing a fiber prepreg material. The disclosure also relates to a method for puncturing a fiber prepreg material.
A prepreg material is made by impregnating a fiber material with resin. It may form into a desired three-dimensional shape by different techniques, such as by lamination thereof, or wrapping a complex mandrel with the prepreg material, followed by a thermoforming process and so forth, so as to obtain a composite product that is lightweight and has high strength. The prepreg material, after being produced by impregnating the fiber material with the resin, may be rolled into a roll and packaged for storage. Next, they are delivered downstream for further processing, e.g., the lamination, the rolling, the wrapping or the thermoforming process, as mentioned above. Since the composite product usually has a complex structure, some undesirable situations may arise during the process. For instance, the prepreg material may show a lack of ductility or poor wrapping quality, or may have resin accumulated therein. In addition, entrapped air voids may be present during the process due to air accumulation. Therefore, the present invention aims to make the prepreg material more adaptable for a product with a complex shape, and meanwhile solve the problem of the entrapped air voids, which may require the prepreg material to be reprocessed.
Therefore, an object of the disclosure is to provide a puncture equipment for puncturing a fiber prepreg material, and a method for puncturing a fiber prepreg material that can alleviate at least one of the drawbacks of the prior art.
According to a first aspect of the disclosure, the puncture equipment includes a feeding roller set, a tension-controlling roller set, a puncture apparatus, and a roll-wrapping apparatus. The feeding roller set is adapted to deliver the fiber prepreg material along a feeding direction. The tension-controlling roller set is located downstream of the feeding roller set, and adapted to impart tension to the fiber prepreg material and to continuously deliver the fiber prepreg material along the feeding direction. The puncture apparatus is located downstream of the tension-controlling roller set, and includes a needle-carrying plate, a base plate that is oppositely located to the need-carrying plate relative to the fiber prepreg material, and a plurality of needles that are detachably disposed on the needle-carrying plate. The needle-carrying plate is capable of moving toward the base plate. The needles have a number less than 6225, and any two adjacent ones of the needles are spaced apart by a distance ranging from 15 millimeters to 1000 millimeters. The roll-wrapping apparatus is located downstream of the puncture apparatus and adapted to roll wrap the fiber prepreg material.
According to a second aspect of the disclosure, the method includes:
Other features and advantages of the disclosure will become apparent in the following detailed description of the embodiment(s) with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is noted that various features may not be drawn to scale.
Before the disclosure is described in greater detail, it should be noted that where considered appropriate, reference numerals or terminal portions of reference numerals have been repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements, which may optionally have similar characteristics.
It should be noted herein that for clarity of description, spatially relative terms such as “top,” “bottom,” “upper,” “lower,” “on,” “above,” “over,” “downwardly,” “upwardly” and the like may be used throughout the disclosure while making reference to the features as illustrated in the drawings. The features may be oriented differently (e.g., rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relative terms used herein may be interpreted accordingly.
Referring to
Referring to
The disclosure also provides a method for puncturing the fiber prepreg material (B). First, the fiber prepreg material (B) is delivered along the feeding direction (A) by the feeding roller set 1, and subsequently delivered along the feeding direction (A) by the tension-controlling roller set 2, which also imparts tension to the fiber prepreg material (B) in a controlled manner. Thereafter, the fiber prepreg material (B) having received the tension is continuously delivered along the feeding direction (A) by the driving roller set 3 and moves to a position between the needle-carrying plate 41 and the base plate 42, and then the needle-carrying plate 41 moves toward and away from the base plate 42 so that the needles 43 puncture the fiber prepreg material (B), so as to form a plurality of perforations in a region of the fiber prepreg material (B). An area of the region is equivalent to a surface area of the needle-carrying plate 41 which is utilized to press onto the fiber prepreg material (B) upon puncturing thereof, so that the perforations in the region of the fiber prepreg material (B) have the number less than 6225, and that a fiber length between any two adjacent ones of the perforations in the region of the fiber prepreg material (B) ranges from 15 millimeters to 1000 millimeters. In addition, the region of the fiber prepreg material (B) has long fibers and short fibers that are in a number ratio of 65.2 to 34.8. Specifically, the short fibers are those fibers that, after being punctured, have a length of less than 50% of a length of a mandrel (e.g., a diameter of the mandrel), which is a tool for wrapping, or have a length ranging from 15 millimeters to 1000 millimeters. Additionally, long fibers on the fiber prepreg material (B) are those fibers that, after being punctured, have a length of greater than or equal to 50% of the length of the mandrel, or have a length of greater than 1000 millimeters. In some embodiments, in each unit surface area of the fiber prepreg material (B), a ratio of a number of the long fibers to a number of the short fibers is 65.2:34.8. Thus, the strength of the fiber prepreg material (B) may be ensured while its ductility is increased. After passing the puncture apparatus 4, the fiber prepreg material (B) is to be coated with a film (commonly known as PE film) by the first coating apparatus 5 upon arrival thereat, and subsequently to be coated with a release paper by the second coating apparatus 6 as it arrives at the second coating apparatus 6, which is followed by being roll-wrapped by the roll-wrapping apparatus 7.
It should be noted that the tension-controlling roller set 2 is capable of controlling the tension it applies to the fiber prepreg material (B), so as to further control a coefficient of variation of numbers of fiber breakage occurring due to puncturing in the region of the fiber prepreg material (B) to be not greater than 0.5%. In addition, the needle seats 413 do not necessarily have to be filled with the needles 43. The number and position of the needles 43 shown in
In sum, the fiber prepreg material (B), after being punctured by the above method to form the perforations thereon, has a higher ductility, thereby making it easy to be roll-wrapped, and has an improved mechanical properties. Moreover, the perforations may help to discharge air, thereby solving the problem of entrapped air voids, which tend to be present during coiling and packaging. Furthermore, the puncture equipment and the method according to the disclosure are applicable to a conventional impregnating system without the need for secondary processing, thereby improving operation efficiency and providing high versatility. Thus, the object of the disclosure is achieved.
In the description above, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details have been set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiment(s). It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that one or more other embodiments may be practiced without some of these specific details. It should also be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” an embodiment with an indication of an ordinal number and so forth means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic may be included in the practice of the disclosure. It should be further appreciated that in the description, various features are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of various inventive aspects; such does not mean that every one of these features needs to be practiced with the presence of all the other features. In other words, in any described embodiment, when implementation of one or more features or specific details does not affect implementation of another one or more features or specific details, said one or more features may be singled out and practiced alone without said another one or more features or specific details. It should be further noted that one or more features or specific details from one embodiment may be practiced together with one or more features or specific details from another embodiment, where appropriate, in the practice of the disclosure.
While the disclosure has been described in connection with what is (are) considered the exemplary embodiment(s), it is understood that this disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiment(s) but is intended to cover various arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent arrangements.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 112144767 | Nov 2023 | TW | national |
