More than lightweight – groundbreaking innovation for a faster production of cost-efficient and high–performance parts
Composites 4.0 at the service of the industry
At Voith Composites we design and manufacture industry-leading carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) - lightweight, strong materials used for a wide range of applications.
With our state-of-the-art Composites 4.0 digital production line, including the award-winning Voith Roving Applicator NextGen, we set the highest standards in CFRP parts manufacturing and are pioneering innovative processes for the future, such as sustainable and recyclable composites.
If your organization operates in automotive, paper industry or other industries, we provide faster, easier and more consistent composites manufacturing, from prototype to scale production to save you time and resources. We leverage our 10 years experience and know-how in filament winding thick-walled products such as CFRP rolls for paper machines to offer highly innovative and performing hydrogen tanks.
Our products
Carbon4Tank is a type IV high-pressure H₂ tank made with towpreg filament winding technology.
We design and produce customized composites in a fully automated and digitized manufacturing environment, raising the bar in automotive manufacturing quality.
Our markets
Find out about our current applications and successfully implemented composite projects:
Automotive
The rear wall is customized for the Audi A8 and displays the largest component of the occupant call. With its optimized fiber layup with 6 to 19 carbon fiber layers, it significantly contributes to the torsional rigidity of the vehicle. The rear wall is manufactured in Voith Composites' in-house developed production line and is designed to manufacture approximately 65,000 components each year. At JEC World 2018, we received the JEC Innovation Award 2018 for this digital production line.
digital production line wins JEC Award 2018
We are shaping the future by industrializing and automating clean and fast production of high-pressure hydrogen tanks (700 bar) made with TowPreg filament winding technology. Our CFRP Type 4 tanks are designed for heavy-duty commercial vehicles and offer a sustainable solution at automotive quality standards. The combined expertise of Voith Turbo & Voith Composites results in high-performing H₂ storage systems - The plug & Drive H₂ Storage System. It uses Carbon4Tank and focuses on deep customer integration, sustainability and circularity ovre the product lifecyle.
Industry
Guide rolls made of steel are often operated above their capacity limits, which can result in vibrations and thermal deformations. Unlike steel, the strength and rigidity of CFRP rolls can be adapted to the specific requirements without altering the installation space. Moreover, the much lower density ensures a significant weight reduction. CFRP components also offer a range of other benefits, like low thermal expansion or excellent running properties. Thus, composites are typically used for various guide rolls along the entire paper manufacturing process in the paper industry.
Voith Paper uses the reduced thermal expansion behavior of CFRP in its coating units SpeedFlow, SpeedSizer and Dynacoat to increase production quality for the end customer. Conventional coater beams are made of metallic materials and deform strongly due to one-sided thermal loads. This must be compensated for by additional technology such as active temperature control.
When using CFRP coater beam, this additional effort is completely eliminated. Uniform transversal coating profiles during application as well as a constant coating weight under all operating conditions are guarenteed by the thermally dimensionally stable coaster beam. In addition, the complexity of the entire coating unit system is reduced and thus the maintenance effort as well as energy and operating costs are lowered.
In cooperation with Voith Turbo, blades for the Voith Inline Thruster (VIT) were manufactured from CFRP. This set a new standard for the coating quality of anti-cavitation coating. Moreover, the blades are characterized by a high UD proportion.
Voith Composites won JEC Innovation Award 2022
Our preforming technologies
Voith Roving Applicator NextGen
Voith Roving Applicator (VRA) NextGen
Voith Roving Applicator
Voith Roving Applicator (VRA)
The method uses cost-effective raw materials such as untreated rovings and binder powder to produce a near-net-shape dry stack as part of the fully automated preform production. The VRA produces components efficiently, inclusive of individual fiber distribution and local reinforcements.
Filament Winding Process
Filament Winding Process
Research and development
We continue to enhance our expertise in numerous development projects – on our own and with research and industry partners.
R&D and production center
- Design with CATIA and Inventor
- FE simulations using ANSYS and Abaqus
- Material analyses using DMTA, TGA, CT and microscopy
- ThinPly
- In house burst tests at our own test station
Engineering
Resources
Content
BMW M is an innovator in the automotive industry. While CFRP techniques are slowly being adopted by some auto manufacturers, the BMW Group and BMW M are already realizing the potential of having successfully integrated CFRP parts.
download the case study
HORYZN is a student initiative focused on real-world use cases for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). The team from TU Munich works collaboratively on the design, development, and implementation of UAVs for social good. Voith Composites was approached to support HORZYN’s latest project, an eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) UAV for medical emergencies, providing its CFRP tooling solution – Carbon4Tool - which has helped the project achieve early success.
Read the case study
Composites 4.0 is part of what we know as Industry 4.0 or more commonly, digital transformation. It enables automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies within the composites industry. It’s about developing technology to make the best of composite manufacturing - building smart factories and processes that are optimized to reduce waste and cost while increasing the quality of composite parts.
Download the white paper
DUQUEINE Group - a world-class manufacturer of composite parts in France - joined forces with Voith Composites to test Carbon4Tool - Voith’s innovative new carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) prepreg material for tooling applications.
News
Voith Composites, Composites 4.0 leader and production center of carbon fiber-reinforced composites in the Voith Group, today announces its intent to partner with V-Carbon, an advanced materials technology company that delivers sustainable carbon fiber material systems. The partnership will establish and deliver industry leading innovation to achieve the first sustainable and closed-loop solution for CFRP materials for H₂ systems.
read more
Voith Composites, the Composites 4.0 industry leader and production center of carbon fiber-reinforced composite solutions (CFRP) in the Voith Group, has won the JEC Composites Innovation Award 2022 for the development of the Voith Inline Thruster CFRP rotor blades using Carbon4Stack and Carbon4Tool.
read more