The E-LFT process was developed by ESORO on behalf of the Weber Fibertech company. The patented process for processing long fibre and continuous filament-reinforced thermoplastics was presented for the first time at the 2003 AVK Congress with a fully automatically manufactured and tested specimen component.
This was based on the already established, low-cost and flexible LFT extrusion process, supplemented by plant engineering for conditioning continuous-filament sections. A high-performance handling system allows joint deposition of LFT and continuous-filament sections (EF) as a complex multiple intermediate layer in a compression mould.
The single-stage process which is suitable for large-scale production results in low-cost components entirely without material offcuts which, thanks to the targeted combination of EF and LFT, feature a performance spectrum which exceeds that of conventional LFT or GMT parts many times over. It allows applications which have, to date, been the sole domain of metallic components.