Composite door for French High speed Train

Composite door for the French high-speed train made by RTM-Light

A collaborative industrial project between the American material producer Owens Corning, a world leader in glass fiber reinforcement and building material systems, and the French company Stratiforme Industries has allowed to produce a new composite door for the French high speed train i.e. TGV. This innovation is a lateral cover or engine compartment door made by using a resin transfer molding (RTM-Light) process and Uniconform™ mat as reinforcement while the previous doors were made by hand lay-up. As a result the new composite door exhibits higher characteristics in terms of stiffness, impact resistance, dimensional stability and fire resistance. Moreover the new process allows to reduce the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and styrene emissions.