Paper number 307

INFLUENCE OF THE SHEET FORMING TECHNIQUE ON THE IMPREGNATION QUALITY OF TEXTILE REINFORCED THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITES

Sofie Baeten, Alleson Herman Corey, Ignaas Verpoest¹

1Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, de Croylaan 2, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium

Summary

As a thermoplastic matrix is more suitable for short cycle production, low cost weft inserted warp knitting is applied to produce a cost-effective thermoplastic textile, containing both non-crimp reinforcing glass fibres and polypropylene matrix ribbons. The composite structures can be obtained by simple pressing the textile preform without any further addition of the matrix. A full consolidation at high pressure and temperature or a pre-compaction at low pressure and intermediate temperature to eliminate the uncontrolled shrinkage of the stretched thermoplastic ribbons are used for the laminate production. Moreover, the influence of a cold pressing after pre-compaction on the impregnation quality has been examined in more detail. A special definition has been set up to quantify the degree of impregnation, which includes the degree of wetting out of the individual fibres (void content) and the fibre distribution within the bundle. A correlation between the degree of impregnation, the void content and the flexural performance is shown.

Keywords

textile preforms, thermoplastics, glass fibres, fast processing, impregnation quality, flow behaviour, automotive applications.