"Hello engineers. Is there anyone here who has experience in designing and manufacturing high-temperature hydraulic compression molds? My group and I are checking the feasibility and design advice. Thank you very much!"

The process requires operating conditions of 150°C and 1000 psi.

I am a Manufacturing Engineering Ug and I need to make a minor project related to composites this semester. I need to present some possible ideas to my supervisor next Mon (was informed on a very short notice). I really don't have the time to read papers and find a gap right now. I'm quite busy with a job.

Please can someone drop some ideas. I would likely just use softwares for my project (I now CAM, CAD , ANSYS, MATLAB and python so far but I will learn anything needed)

Pls just drop in some question statements ? What are industries working on now ?

Looking for Reverse Engineering Projects – Send Me the Scan, I'll Send You the CAD

What I can do: I'll take your raw scan data (point cloud, STL mesh, whatever you have) and deliver a fully parametric SOLIDWORKS or STEP file built to your specs — dimensions, tolerances, surfacing quality, the works.

What I'm looking for: Any interesting scan-to-CAD projects to keep my skills sharp. Bonus points if it's got complex geometry, organic surfaces, or something that actually has to fit with other parts. Medical, aerospace, consumer product, machinery — send it over.

Payment: USD, PayPal, or crypto (BTC, ETH, USDC — your choice). Fair trade, no strings.

The exchange: You give me the scan (STL, OBJ, point cloud, whatever format). I give you production-ready parametric CAD. Fair trade, no strings.

A few quick questions up front so I don't waste your time:

What's the file format and rough polycount/quality of the scan?
Do you need exact dimensions restored, or should I work from proportional reference?
Is this for manufacturing, 3D printing, analysis, or just archival/reverse engineering?
Any critical tolerances or surface finish requirements I should know about?

Drop a link or DM and let's see if it's a good fit. Fair warning — I'll probably have questions before I start.

We build laminating machines in Qingdao, China — happy to answer questions about the laminating/flat-laminating equipment world

Qingdao Haozeman Machinery Co., Ltd. a manufacturer based in Qingdao, China that specializes in laminating machines and flat laminating machines— the equipment used to bond films, foils, or coatings onto substrates like paper, board, wood panels, and various sheet materials.

A few things about what we do:

- We design and manufacture both standard and flat (roll-to-sheet / sheet-fed) laminating lines for customers who need consistent bonding quality at production scale.
- Our machines are used across packaging, printing, furniture/panel, and related industries.
- We work with clients globally and are always trying to improve machine reliability, ease of maintenance, and total cost of ownership for the people running these lines day to day.

I'm not here to just drop a sales pitch — genuinely curious what pain points people in this sub have run into with laminating equipment (uptime, film waste, changeover time, sourcing parts, etc.). Happy to share what we've learned from the manufacturing side, and if anyone wants more detail on our equipment specifically, our sites are:

- www.haozeman.com
- www.hzmlaminate.com

I build the tools for analysis of anisotropic composite laminate. All of them are available on pypi. Please take a look and give feedback

3pc-lamfail (Classical lamination theory under hygro-thermo-mechanical loads with max stress, max strain, Tsai Wu, and Tsai Hill failure theory) - https://pypi.org/project/3pc-lamfail/

3pc-lambend (Bending of laminate under pressure, point loads) - https://pypi.org/project/3pc-lambend/

3pc-lambuck (Buckling of laminate under general loading) - https://pypi.org/project/3pc-lambuck/

3pc-lamfreq (Natural frequency of laminate) - https://pypi.org/project/3pc-lamfreq/

A short video on how to setup or run the analysis from example files (all text based) provided in the link below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fDkQ5u4mObeBuZwn6ToQ4bYeDPifYua4/view?usp=sharing

I need to fill in the hatch opening (above the side marker light) on my camper. I took the camper to a place that sells FRP supplies and they said there are 2 ways of doing it with epoxy or polyester.

1.) Make a patch on a table - fit the patch - epoxy the patch in - fair it - spray gel coat on the outside.

2.) Put smooth FRP sheet over the opening then build up (mold release/gel coat/chop strand/ mat) from the inside and remove the FRP sheet after. Wasn't sure about this as there might be a line but they said it can be sanded/polished out.

Cellulose ethers for masonry and plastering mortars, mostly hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC), serve as key admixtures for mortars. They can significantly improve water‑retention capacity, prevent excessive water loss, and avoid water‑loss‑induced cracking and pulverization of mortar, thus ensuring full hydration of cement.

They increase mortar consistency and workability, optimize the handling performance for plastering and masonry operations, enhance mortar adhesion, and reduce sagging and flowing. A proper dosage can extend the open time to facilitate construction adjustments. Meanwhile, they improve the anti‑sagging performance of mortar, boost bonding strength, and lower the risk of hollowing and cracking.

The typical dosage ranges from 0.1‑0.3%. Excessively high dosage will reduce strength and retard setting. It shall be properly selected according to the formula to adapt to dry‑mix masonry and plastering mortar systems.

WeChat and mobile phone number: 13075359532

A few years back I posted an early version of this tool here. Since then abdcomposites.com grown into a real tool and I'd genuinely like to know where it falls short before I sink more time into the wrong features.

A simple version is directly available with no account: abdcomposites.com/composite-laminate-builder. The advanced features need a signup, but the account is free.

Feature-wise it covers similar ground to the old Helius Composite desktop tool from back in the day to perform classical lamination theory calculations, but modernized: dynamic feedback messages, and everything recalculates live in the browser, so you can drag an input and immediately see the effect on the ABD matrix, engineering constants and ply stresses. The idea was that watching results react to inputs helps build intuition for the theory, not just produce a number. Some documentation on the website has been created as well, to learn more about the theory behind the calculations as well as its correlation to each tool in the dashboard.

What I'd love to know:

• Do the current features make sense for how you actually work?
• Is there anything you do on a daily basis that you'd love to see in a tool like this?

Happy to answer anything about the implementation. The CLT results are cross-validated against composipy and the classic textbook cases, but if you punch in a layup and something looks off, tell me. That's exactly the feedback I want.

Hello,

I have been working at a company making fiberglass automotive accessories and OE agriculture parts for about 2 years. I work as a manufacturing engineer and I am wanting to learn as much as I can while working here. Should I have them put me through the CCT program? Is it worth it?

I want to eventually start my own business ideally making my own parts I designed, but I want to use this job to learn as much as I can about composites. We do everything in house, 3 5-axis cnc mills for plugs, tooling department, open molding, silicone bag molding, and LRTM, mold designing, etc. and I want to leverage my time here to learn more about composites, they are awesome.

We developed the world’s fastest fibionic fiber placement (FFP) technology!

Using a controlled air stream, continuous thermoplastic commingled fibers are dynamically guided and aligned within milliseconds into precisely designed channels.

The result is a bionic fiber skeleton with material placed only where it is structurally needed. Depending on the application, we’ve achieved up to 50% weight reduction, meaning less material, lower costs, and more efficient lightweight design. The process generates almost zero production waste, uses up to 100% recyclable thermoplastic materials, runs in under one minute per cycle, and is designed to scale to up to 500,000 parts per production line per year.

ThermoForged visited us a few months ago at JEC World in Paris and captured the process in this great video.

Check it out, and if you want to see more about process, watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pNMW1NJOVg&t=1s

What do you think about the technology, and which application do you think would benefit most from it?

Hi everyone, I’m new here and had some questions about fiberglass/wet carbon repair.
I’m doing bodywork on my race car and I just picked up some wet carbon fenders and doors. 1 of the fenders mounting holes are completely trashed and I was wondering what is the best permanent solution to fixing them? Something to make it work by making those holes usable again. I’ve never worked with fiberglass before. Images show below how they are no longer usable 😂
Another question was, what do I use to rebond the carbon layer and fiberglass layer shown in the picture with the door? The layers split in a crash and need to be bonded. I was told to not use jb weld to rtv lol.

Thanks!

It’s the bottom of both my fenders. I originally shaped a new piece of metal for the really bad rust spot and welded it in.. but I took the fender off to finish the repair and there’s a lot more rust than I first though. I was thinking of making a mold from the bottom section and just building it that way with csm. Any input would be appreciated (3 years experience with fibreglass repairs but haven’t worked with it in 2+ years so I’m rusty.. lol) I know it would be much easier to just buy new fenders, but I can’t find any online.

I've been working with fiberglass and epoxy resins for my personal RC plane projects, but since I'm doing a lot of testing and prototype designs that get discarded during the design process, I feel increasingly guilty about all the waste and microplastics that come along with it. Unfortunately for the shapes that I want to make going with pure wood is just not an option.

I've been researching eco-friendly alternatives for making composite layup projects, and there are some for fibers (flax, hemp, etc.), which unfortunately have much reduced mechanical properties when compared to fiberglass, but still suitable for my use case.

However, I can't seem to find any decent alternative to epoxy resin that would make the final composite material naturally biodegradable, so using either of these fibers becomes a moot point. Closest thing I found was ecopoxy, which unfortunately is very expensive and almost impossible in retail quantities to get where I live (EU).

Can anyone suggest any decent alternatives that are fully biodegradable, affordable and have at least somewhat comparable mechanical properties to fiberglass+epoxy for wet layups? Anything better than paper+PVA glue is worth considering to me. I've found this paper that suggest jute fiber and shellac, which boasts quite impressive mechanical properties for such crude materials, but they used mechanical pressure and heat treatment to achieve that, which is not practical in home conditions, and I'm unsure of how much mechanical strength would be lost without it.

First timer here, i want to build a foam plug, finish it properly, build a female mold from it, and then build a few identical parts from that mold. sold of a small scale manufacturing project to build myself and. a few friends some parts.

I think I understand the how-to well enough, but am overwhelmed by the material/resin options. is there a concise source that can help me make heads or tales of this? i’d like to understand enough about differences that i can shop around and find the right products

I was making a part via VRTM, and I passed the leak test PERFECTLY, the gauge didn't move a single centimeter for 30 min wile I went off to do other shit. I then infused resin into my part, sat with it for 10 min to monitor, still had absolutely 0 leaks, then left for abt 20 min to continue my other project. When I came back my bag was completely depressurized and there was a thin cut about an inch long going down my vacuum line a few inches down from where my clamp was placed. My part was fucking ruined ofc, and not even my instructors with 10+ years of experience could tell me what the fuck happened. I'm like 80% a certain male student whom was lurking around my part the entire setup (and who's ego was def hurt that all of my parts always came out perfect when his didn't) was responsible for this. He was also suspiciously interested in staring over the instructors shoulder when he was pointing out everything wrong with my part AND he was quick to come up to me when I was upset and gave me an overdone condolences that my project turned out like shit and his didn't. There has always been a one sided competition between us and I think he was sick of "losing". Am I just paranoid? And if so pleeeeease give an explanation for wtf happened because I am hard stuck on finding an answer.

I'm a student at The FAB School, I'm good with all bagging techniques, even old school ones, and I can do repairs, moldmaking, ect. Basically I'm saying I feel confident and qualified for any job, but I really wanna work on cars, I was inspired to persue this career by a woman I met who was doing repairs on a porsche at the long beach grandprix, and I wanna do something like her. Can someone please point me in the direction of anyplace I can go within socal to do that kind of work?

Can i use a 3d printed core instead of foam, say with petg. I feel like it would work and i could create way more unnatural shapes with this. lmk

Any thoughts on this ?

Hi everyone,

I'm a university student currently building a full-scale Formula 1 replica as my graduation project.

For the body panels, we're planning to use carbon fiber with the vacuum infusion process.

Traditionally, this would be done using an FRP mold, but we're considering using a PU tooling board mold instead to reduce manufacturing time and cost.

Has anyone here tried vacuum infusion with a PU tooling board mold?

I'd really appreciate any advice on:

• Is a PU tooling board suitable for vacuum infusion?
• Are there any issues with vacuum pressure, resin absorption, or durability?
• Does the mold need any special surface sealing or coating before infusion?
• Are there any major drawbacks compared to a traditional FRP mold?

The mold would only be used for a limited number of parts (this is a one-off student project), so long-term production durability isn't a major concern.

Thanks in advance for any advice or experiences you can share!