What if creating tooling for composites and thermoformed plastics was as simple as turning on and off a faucet? Well, a patented tooling system from 2Phase Technologies Inc. promises to make tooling just about that easy.
The company's Reformable Tooling System consists of a tooling bed connected to a vacuum pump. Users create their "tool" by first turning a valve and pumping liquid into the aluminum-framed tooling bed, which contains ceramic microbeads beneath a flexible membrane. While in this "liquid" phase, the bed feels something like a waterbed. Users then press an existing part or model into the membrane and activate the pump to draw the liquid out of the bed.
Once the liquid exits, the microbeads remain, packed together so tightly that an impression of the part remains in the membrane. According to Craig Leong, a research and development engineer for the company, the microbeads contact one another tangentially, so the volume of the impression doesn't change when the liquid evacuates the tooling bed. He likens this "solid" phase to "a room so full of people that no one can move."
This impression in the tooling bed serves as prototype or low-volume-production tooling for a variety of open-mold composite processes as well as for plastics thermoforming. It can also act as a bonding fixture or help with repair of existing tools (see http://rbi.ims.ca/4928-515 for a complete list of applications). Tool creation takes just a few minutes. And the process is completely reversible: Just pump the liquid back into the bed to fluidize it, and the system is ready for another part. Despite the reversibility, though, the tooling life can be substantial.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 This rapid tooling system creates tooling by pumping liquid into and out of a bed of ceramic microbeads. |
|
|
John Crowley, 2Phase's president, notes that the tooling has a "ceramic-like hardness" and can handle temperatures up to 400F. "So these tools can last long enough for some production parts," he says. With open-mold-composite parts, the 2Phase system has produced dozens of parts.
Crowley adds that the system has overall tolerances within 0.005 inches, with small-feature reproducibility to -0.005 inches.
So far, the chief use of the 2Phase machine has been in the production of open-mold carbon-fiber composite parts. Crowley reports that the tooling bed takes the place of a tool that otherwise would have been machined from aluminum or other composites "at much greater expense than our system."
The biggest parts the system has handled so far have fit on a 42 × 60-inch bed with a 18-inch depth. Crowley notes, however, that the system can be scaled up to accommodate much larger parts.
Once the tooling bed comes off the machine, this impression serves as the mold cavity for a variety of prototyping and low-volume production forming and molding processes. The whole process takes just a few minutes. And the tool creation process is completely reversible. Just pump the liquid back into the bed to fluidize it once again, and it’s ready for another part. from aluminum or other
To learn more about 2Phase's Reformable Tooling System, go to http://rbi.ims.ca/4928-512.
Tweet This
0 
