2. Thermoplastic composites for
aeronautical and automotive
applications
A. Brødsjø, Research Specialist
Airborne Technology Centre, The Hague

3. Contents
• Thermoplastics
• Continuous winding process
• TAPAS project
• Discrete fibre placement
• Process testing
• Continuous Fibre Placement

4. 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)

5. 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

7. Current pilot line

8. First commercial product

9. 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

10. TAPAS project
• TAPAS = Thermoplastic Affordable
Primary Aircraft Structure
• Airbus + NL cluster:
– Stork Fokker, Ten Cate, Airborne, DTC,
KVE,
– TU Delft, Universiteit Twente,
Technobis, (NLR)

11. 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

12. TAPAS project
• WP 1 Fuselage panel demonstrator
– Double curved fuselage nose skin
structure of A30x (successor to A320)
– Airbus in the lead

13. TAPAS project
• WP 2: Torsion box demonstrator
– Torsion box of Gulfstream G650
horizontal stabilizer
– Fokker in the lead
TP Skins
6m
TP stringers

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. Continuous fibre placement
Concept:
• Continuous process to produce
discrete rectangular profiles
• Based on continuous winding
technology
• Use of connected mandrels
Mandrel Mandrel
joining separation
CFP CFP CFP saw
station station station

20. Continuous fibre placement
Possible uses of profiles:
welding or
sawing co-consolidation
press-forming
sawing

21. Continuous fibre placement
Potential markets: Aerospace
• Panel stiffeners, floor beams
– New generation single aisle will
require >100km /year of stringers
– Length >10m

22. Continuous fibre placement
Potential markets: Automotive
• State of the art in composites
– Small/medium series <10/day
– Labor intensive => hand made

23. Continuous fibre placement
Potential markets: Automotive
• Crash beams, door pillars,…
– High volume cars: >100.000/year
– Competing with high strength steel
and aluminium

24. Thank you for your
attention!