Performance of In-situ Automated Fibre Placement Parts

Abstract

Despite being a relatively mature manufacturing technology, in-situ automated fibre placement is still yet to see industrial implementation for the manufacturing of primary and secondary aircraft structures owing to fears of high porosity and inferior mechanical properties. In this study, carbon fibre-reinforced PPS is used as a reference material, with which several laminates are manufactured both in-situ and as preforms for subsequent press consolidation. The mechanical, thermal, and tomography results reveal that for the correct manufacturing process parameters, in-situ laminates from can outperform pressed laminates in certain areas and reach 90% of their performance in others. The porosity is also seen to reduce during the manufacturing process, decreasing to 1.1% from the unprocessed prepreg material 2.2%. These results indicate a promising future for the inclusion of in-situ parts in the coming generations of transport vehicles.