Joining Processes for Fibre-Reinforced Thermoplastics: Phenomena and Characterisation

Bidirectional-Reinforced Carbon Fiber/Polyether-Ether-Ketone Composite Thin-Walled Pipes via Pultrusion-Winding for On-Orbit Additive Manufacturing

Benefitting from lightweight, high strength, long life, and green recyclability, continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite (CFTPC) pipes have attracted extensive interest, especially in the on-orbit additive manufacturing of structural components. However, the preparation of CFTPC pipes remains challenging due to the on-orbit limited space and high processing temperature of thermoplastic resin. Here, we report an effective approach for high performance carbon fiber/polyether-ether-ketone (CF/PEEK) thin-walled pipes via bidirectional reinforcement using the pultrusion-winding technique. The continuous fabrication of thin-walled pipes can be achieved, but the limitation by the size of core mold is also broken. The compressive and shear performance of CF/PEEK pipes with different layer designs have been studied based on experiments and simulations. With the increase in axial prepreg tape layer, the resultant CF/PEEK pipes exhibit greatly improved axial compression strength. The finite element analysis indicates that the maximum axial stress is decreased due to the axial enhancement. The flexural strength is greatly proved with pultrusion-winding cycles. The simulation confirms that the circumferential strain is effectively reduced. The high performance of bidirectional reinforced CF/PEEK pipes and the facile controllability of this approach highlight their suitability for utilization in on-orbit manufacturing of large-scale structures.

Correction: Troschitz et al. Joining Processes for Fibre-Reinforced Thermoplastics: Phenomena and Characterisation. Materials 2022, 15, 5454

The authors would like to make the following corrections about the published paper [...].

Warmforming Flow Pressing Characteristics of Continuous Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites

The paper presents research regarding a thermally supported multi-material clinching process (hotclinching) for metal and thermoplastic composite (TPC) sheets: an experimental approach to investigate the flow pressing phenomena during joining. Therefore, an experimental setup is developed to compress the TPC-specimens in out-of-plane direction with different initial TPC thicknesses and varying temperature levels. The deformed specimens are analyzed with computed tomography to investigate the resultant inner material structure at different compaction levels. The results are compared in terms of force-compaction-curves and occurring phenomena during compaction. The change of the material structure is characterized by sliding phenomena and crack initiation and growth.