Abstract
A conventional heat oven was employed for superplastic alloy diaphragm forming of continuous carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic.
In an innovative pilot scale pressure vessel design, specially formed parts were cooled by an air/water jet.
Thus it is possible to control the crystalinity of semi-crystaline polimer matrix.
The objective of this investigation was to establish the processing criteria required to economically form complex, large scale curved parts without causing shear-buckling.
Female hemispherical section parts with varying depths were formed by apllying gaseous pressure across a superplastic alloy sheet. Part quality, and fiber placement inspected.
An investigation was performed to study the pressurization forming cycle and it's relation between cooling rates with the air/water jet and impact damage by the drop weight test.
