Direct Thermoplastic Impregnation of Leno-Woven Fabric

Abstract

To bring high-performance fiber-reinforced composite parts into the mainstream, the parts need to be molded in minutes, easily recyclable and utilize continuous fibers. Current processing methods and materials rely on difficult-to-recycle thermoset resins and long-cycle-time reaction based molding unsuitable for growing demand. Only recently have manufacturing requirements of fiber reinforced composite surpassed current manufacturing capabilities spawning new methods and materials suited for high-volume production. A new all-glass leno-woven unidirectional (UD) non-crimp fabric (NCF) promising structural stability and high permeability was used to demonstrate its suitability for thermoplastic compression resin transfer molding (TP-CRTM) which borrows concepts from thermoplastic injection molding. Through permeability measurements and compression molding this preliminary study investigates the practical feasibility of TP-CRTM using all-glass leno-woven UD NCF and introduces and implements a technique for high-contrast UV fluorescence microscopy. It was demonstrated that higher molding pressures during thermoplastic compression molding improved saturation of the leno-woven UD NCF without overly distorting the fabric structure and that basic UV fluorescence methods resulted in high-contrast images for void detection.