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Old 01-04-18 | 04:14 PM
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Originally Posted by bcpriess
Agree with everything you wrote. What I'm saying about Lemond, is I have a hunch their composite partners have or are close to having a means of using long fibers or woven fibers in injection molded parts to achieve truly structural IM parts.
If that can be done, I'd love to see how. I just can't imagine it, though. I know CF layup can be automated for fairly simple shapes, but it's still a layup process. I think they'd have better luck combining long fiber with 3-D printing; the printer head could include a feed mechanism like the wire-feed welding machines. That would give good control over where the fibers went. Stuffing a bunch of long fibers into an injection mold ... the molten plastic coming into the mold under high pressure could push the fibers who-knows-where, and may not evenly coat the surfaces of the fibers. Sounds like a nightmare.
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