Owens Corning provided the Uniconform glass fibre mat which was used as the reinforcement in the process.

The door had previously been made using the hand lay-up composite process. The change to the RTM-Light process was made to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and styrene from Stratiforme's production facility, and to produce two smooth sides on the part and eliminate the scratch risk associated with train crews touching the door's inside during maintenance operations.

"RTM was clearly the best choice for the part," reports Vincent Marhem, research and development engineer at Stratiforme. "The process allows us to make the required series of parts with consistent dimensions and performance, which are critical factors for this application. We can impregnate the glass reinforcements with a highly filled resin while keeping the glass content at a high ratio, and we avoided 'over designing' the part to make sure it will meet the specifications for minimum thickness. |

"We also doubled our productivity per mould per day," he adds.

The composite part is often subjected to high impact forces from stones, birds or other projectiles hitting it when the train's speed exceeds 300 km/h.

Stratiforme Industries specialises in glass reinforced plastic (GRP) composite parts for trains, metros and trams. It has manufacturing facilities in France, Poland and Morocco.