Compared to reinforcing concrete with steel bars, rebars—made of fiber-reinforced plastic—have a high potential for resource savings in the construction industry due to their corrosion resistance. For the large-volume market of reinforcement elements, efficient manufacturing processes must be developed to ensure the best possible bond behavior between concrete and rebar. In contrast to established FRP-rebars made with thermosetting materials, the use of a thermoplastic matrix enables surface profiling without severing the edge fibers as well as subsequent bending of the bar. The rebars to be produced in this study are based on the process of reactive thermoplastic pultrusion of continuously glass fiber reinforced aPA6. Their surface must enable a mechanical interlocking between the reinforcement bar and concrete. Concepts for a profiling device have been methodically developed and evaluated. The resulting concept of a double wheel embossing unit with a variable infeed and an infrared preheating section is built as a prototype, implemented in a pultrusion line, and further optimized. For a comprehensive understanding of the embossing process, reinforcement bars are manufactured, characterized, and evaluated under parameter variation according to a statistical experimental plan. The present study demonstrates the relationship between the infeed, preheating temperature, and haul-off speed with respect to the embossing depth, which is equivalent to the rib height. No degradation of the Young’s modulus was observed as a result of the profiling process.

Process speed in pultrusion is significantly influenced by the exothermic reactions of the matrix materials used. The main reaction zone (gel zone) is a key indicator to describe and interpret the reaction behavior in pultrusion. It can be easily observed by elevated temperatures in the die, particularly for highly exothermic thermoset matrices like vinyl ester, epoxy, and polyurethane. However, this effect is not as pronounced in reactive thermoplastics. The exothermic reactions contribute to a reduction in power consumption of the heating plates within the different heating zones, each with its individual temperature. Analyzing the power consumption of the individual heating zones across different process parameter settings allows to determine the position of the gel zone. This information is foundational for pultrusion process optimization, as it allows for more efficient utilization of the die length, ultimately increasing the pull speeds and enabling higher production rates. In this study, a comparative analysis of the power consumption across the heating zones was performed. To validate the findings obtained from the power measurements, thermocouples were drawn through the die at the same process parameters to accurately measure the temperature evolution within the pultruded profile throughout the die length.