Stamp Forming of Continuous Fiber S-shape Thermoplastic Composites

Abstract

Manufacturing of complex-shaped continuous fiber thermoplastic composite parts has received increase attention lately. Stamp forming is a cost effective and rapid shaping method for the thermoplastic composites that has similar mechanism with compression moulding technique. The main steps include heating up the blank to the melting point, pressing and then cooling. In this study, stamp forming was used to make an S-shape thermoplastic composite part. While most investigations are done for L- or U-shapes, the part studied has two opposite curvatures with different radii. The material was carbon fabric/PPS provided by TenCate®. Different layer sequences were considered: thin cross-ply, thin quasi isotropic and thicker quasiisotropic laminates. DMA and DSC analyses were performed to determine the Tg and degree of crystallinity. These were used to determine the processing conditions which include blank temperature before molding, tool temperature, compaction force and time. CMM was used to measure the sample dimensions after stamping. It was observed that the actual part angle and radii are not the same as those of the tool.