Investigation of power and amplitude control in continuous ultrasonic welding of unidirectional CFRPs: A comparative study

Abstract

The presented study aims to evaluate two different control methods for continuous ultrasonic welding of carbon fibre reinforced high performance polymers. A novel power-control mechanism is compared with a state-of-the-art amplitude-controller. Both control methods are applied to a carbon composite material with a LowMelt-PolyArylEtherKetone (LM-PAEK) thermoplastic matrix and evaluated for three different fibre layups of the composite material. The controllers are evaluated based on in-situ data, mechanical properties of the weld seam and its quality ensured by non-destructive testing and microscopic analyses. The similarities and differences between the controllers are discussed and formulated in detail.