MAG (www.mag-ias.com) has unveiled the new VIPER gantry fiber placement system, which features a vertical rail-type design that permits fiber placement on floor-mounted tools.

Easily sized for any part length, the VIPER 7000 gantry system is suitable for blade shells, spar caps, spars and shear webs. It is also ideal for aerospace parts such as wing skins and stabilizer skins.

“We designed this system to bring cost and processing advantages to wind energy and aerospace fiber placement, while incorporating the latest, industry-leading head technology that is proven to deliver the fastest floor-to-floor times in part production,” noted Randy Kappesser, VP at MAG Composites Technologies.

“The VIPER 7000 expands MAG’s industry-leading range of modular product platforms.”

Offering numerous processing advantages to fiber placement work, the new gantry system occupies less floor space than the traditional system. It accommodates both rotation and fixed floor-mounted tooling in either Inner Mold Line (IML) or Outer Mold Line (OML) configurations. Its platform is available in two different styles – low-rail or in-floor – and in any desired length. Other options include 32-creel magazine load and dockable head.

The new gantry system can accurately lay 32 tows of glass-fiber or carbon prepreg tape, using tow widths of 0.12 inch, 0.25 inch or 0.5 inch (3.25 mm, 6.35 mm or 12.7 mm) to produce a total band width of 16 inches or 406 mm. It comes with various patented features, such as backing film removal, individual cut-clamp-restart head and segmented compaction roller. This allows the VIPER 7000 to keep a constant angle even on a complex surface, change ply angle ‘on the fly’ as well as add or reduce individual tows any time. Its programmable processing options include parallel path, fiber steering, limited parallel path and fixed path.