Press Forming of Thermoplastic Composite Fabricated by Tailored Fiber Placement Machine

Abstract

The present study proposes a new fabrication method for Carbon Fiber Reinforced Thermo-Plastic (CFRTP) by using a Tailored Fiber Placement (TFP) machine. Instead of the CF or glass plain weaves, the thermoplastic sheets are used as a base layer for the TFP fabrication. That is, Carbon Fiber (CF) tows are sewn on a Polypropylene (PP) sheet directly, and the PP sheet is impregnated into CF tows by using a hot-pressing machine as a matrix material of composites. This avoids remaining the base sheet as a layer of laminated composites. After the CFRTP flat sheet are fabricated, they are drawn deeply to cylindrical shapes by using a hot servo-pressing machine. Flat CFRTP sheets have spiral or radial fiber shapes and they becomes hoop or straight layers for the sidewall of cylinder after the drawing process. Due to these reinforcement, the fabricated works result in higher rigidity for compression. This is also validated by linear buckling analysis by using finite element analyses.