Download - Anders Brødsjø - Airborne
Thermoplastic composites for aeronautical and automotive applications
A. Brødsjø, Research Specialist
Airborne Technology Centre, The Hague
Contents
• Thermoplastics
• Continuous winding process
• TAPAS project
• Discrete fibre placement
• Process testing
• Continuous Fibre Placement
Thermoplastics
• Group of materials from PE, PP, PA up to PEEK and PEKK
• Thermal process, no chemical reaction (in theory)
Fast process
• Low cost (PE,PP)
• High performance (PEEK, PEKK)
• High toughness, high strain
• Good chemical performance (semicrystalline)
Continuous winding process
Development:
• Shell: “Develop ideal pipe for oil & gas down hole tubing”
• Development started in 2000
• Concept study showed thermoplastic pipe is ideal
• However, production technology not available at the time
• First production line operational 2008
Current pilot line
First commercial product
Continuous winding process
New factory:
• Two production lines with multiple lay-up stations
• Finished product can be loaded onto ship for transport over water
• Located in IJmuiden sea harbour
• Building started, opening 2012
TAPAS project
• TAPAS = Thermoplastic Affordable Primary Aircraft Structure
• Airbus + NL cluster:
– Stork Fokker, Ten Cate, Airborne, DTC, KVE,
– TU Delft, Universiteit Twente, Technobis, (NLR)
TAPAS project
• Target: Raise the TRL of thermoplastics composites in order to use it for structural aircraft components
• Driver thermoplastics: cost & cycle time
– A30x = 1 tot 2 per day!
– High level of integration possible
– Secondary: toughness, impact resistance, FST properties
TAPAS project
• WP 1 Fuselage panel demonstrator
– Double curved fuselage nose skin structure of A30x (successor to A320)
– Airbus in the lead
TAPAS project
• WP 2: Torsion box demonstrator
– Torsion box of Gulfstream G650 horizontal stabilizer
– Fokker in the lead
TP Skins
6m
TP stringers
TAPAS project
Airborne’s role in within TAPAS:
• Deliver flat stringer preforms
• Manufactured with fiber placement
• “consolidated”
• Material Carbon/PEEK or Carbon/PEKK
• Length up to 3 m.
Fibre placement setup
Setup:
• Fibre placement head designed and developed at Airborne
• Features:
– 1” tape
– Cut & restart mechanism
– Suitable up to PEEK
• Head placed on existing 5-axis milling machine
• Set-up used to manufacture blanks for TAPAS torsion box demonstrator
Fibre placement setup
Robot platform:
• Large industrial robot (range 3 m, payload 360 kg, high accuracy)
• To be used as general platform for research on automation
• Fibre placement head will be modified for use on the robot in 2011-Q4
• Will be used to manufacture blanks for TAPAS fuselage demonstrator
Process testing
Approach:
• Material PEKK/AS4D tape by Cytec
• Temperature measured inside laminate with thermocouples
• Parameters (temperature, pressure, speed) varied to optimize settings per layer
• Laminate quality checked using microscope
Process testing
C-scan result:
• C-scan of first laminate shows large amount of porosity
• After autoclave consolidation porosity reduced to acceptable level
Before autoclave consolidation After autoclave consolidation
Continuous fibre placement
Concept:
• Continuous process to produce discrete rectangular profiles
• Based on continuous winding technology
• Use of connected mandrels
CFP station
Mandrel separation
Mandrel joining
saw CFP station
CFP station
Continuous fibre placement
Possible uses of profiles:
sawing welding or
co-consolidation
press-forming sawing
Continuous fibre placement
Potential markets: Aerospace
• Panel stiffeners, floor beams
– New generation single aisle will require >100km /year of stringers
– Length >10m
Continuous fibre placement
Potential markets: Automotive
• State of the art in composites
– Small/medium series <10/day
– Labor intensive => hand made
Continuous fibre placement
Potential markets: Automotive
• Crash beams, door pillars,…
– High volume cars: >100.000/year
– Competing with high strength steel and aluminium
Thank you for your attention!