NEW APPROACH TO MANUFACTURE THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITES USING IN-SITU IMPREGNATION TAPE PLACEMENT PROCESS

摘要

Thermoplastic tape placement is an out of autoclave consolidation process with high potential tornreduce costs for large scale parts by using in-situ consolidation of fully impregnated tapes. In thernlast decade significant progress has been achieved in the fields of process stability, productionrnrate, and part quality. One large drawback is the high material cost, due to the need of fullyrnimpregnated and high quality tapes.rnIn order to drastically decrease material costs, a new approach of thermoplastic tape placementrnprocess was developed. The new approach of using in-situ impregnation needs non-impregnatedrncarbon fiber rovings and polymer matrix material. The rovings were impregnated directly duringrnthe placement resulting in the final part. Different lab scale experiments were carried out tornprove the new approach including optical and mechanical testing.rnThe new in-situ impregnation process is capable of full consolidation and impregnation ofrncarbon fiber rovings with a high performance polymer such as polyphenylensulfid over a plyrnthickness of 200 μm considering a fiber volume fraction of 60 % and low void content. Therncurrent production rate using a single roving (2460 tex) is 0.7 kg/h (1.5 lb/h) and can bernsignificantly increased by placing multiple rovings simultaneously.