Processing and Characterization of Continuous Fibre Tapes Co-Moulded with Long Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastics
An important advantage when designing with plastics is the ability to incorporate features such as ribs, grids and bosses in the part. Rib stiffened polymer matrix composites have been widely used in aerospace, automobile, and civil infrastructure applications due to their high impact and fatigue resistance, high strength and stiffness to weight ratio, and damage tolerance. However, for long fibre-reinforced polymer composites, the processing complexity increases for features including ribs, grids and bosses. An innovative method of replacing ribs is the use of pre-consolidated continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic (CFRT) tapes that can be co-moulded with long fibre thermoplastics (LFT). This work focuses on processing and performance evaluation in terms of the static and dynamic properties of LFTs co-moulded with pre-consolidated CFRTs, referred to as endless long fibre thermoplastic (E-LFT). The E-LFT approach is an alternative to rib stiffened composites. The effect of the thickness and fibre type in tape reinforced LFT is compared to LFT (with and without ribs) of equivalent flexural rigidity for static flexure and low velocity impact (LVI) response. In all these conditions, E-LFT samples performed better that the LFTs with and without ribs. LFT samples with and without ribs exhibited a brittle failure, as opposed to the progressive failure exhibited by E-LFT.