Composirr.

r Part A 29A ( 1998) 18% I X8 C 1997 Elsevier Science Limited

tI.SEVIER

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved I359-835X/98/$19.00

A direct comparison diaphragm forming

of matched-die

versus

J. Krebs K. Friedricha and D. Bhattacharyyab ,

alnstitut fiir Verbundwerkstoffe GmbH, UniversitGt Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany bComposites Research Group, University of Auckland, Auckland, (Received 20 November 7996; accepted 1 May 1997)

New Zealand

Continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic laminates, in comparison with monolithic metallic sheets, are effectively inextensible in the direction of their reinforcements and therefore severely limited in the range of possible deformations they can undergo during forming. Inter-ply and intra-ply shearing plays a major role in the determination of the degree of formability of such laminates. The present study focuses on the shear behaviour of CFRT sheets in inter-ply and intra-ply modes aiming to assess their significance in matched-die and double diaphragm forming processes. In order to gain a better understanding of the minimum stress levels necessary to induce the two different shear modes, basic shearing experiments on single plies and unidirectional reinforced laminates were conducted prior to forming spherical shaped dome parts. By forming down-scaled yacht hulls it was intended to apply the findings obtained with the spherical dome parts to other 3-D shapes and to demonstrate the versatility and limitations of both processes. 0 1997 Elsevier Science Limited.

(Keywords: plytron; inter-ply and intra-ply shearing; matched-die thickening and thinning; spherical dome parts; yacht hulls)

forming; diaphragm

forming; trellis flow; laminate

INTRODUCTION With the introduction of continuous fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composite (CFRT) sheets, manufacturers have been given new opportunities and challenges in developing new production techniques and modifying existing ones for processing these materials. In the course of this process, matched-die and diaphragm forming have crystallised out to be very promising with respect to versatility, complexity of the manufactured components and achievable finish quality. In principle, both processes employ heat and pressure in order to transfer a flat sheet into a doubly curved component; however, the forming mechanism that character&es them is quite different. In matched-die forming, which is probably the more rapid process out of the two, pre-heated sheets are placed in a press in-between two matching dies in order to form a part. Normally, the molten laminates are fixed in clamping frames which not only ease the handling but are also supposed to prevent the sheets from wrinkling and buckling during forming. At the end of the forming stroke both sides of the laminate touch the hard die surfaces which ensures that the desired geometry is reproducibly achieved and the parts exhibit a smooth surface finish. This very advantage may, however, turn into a disadvantage if the local thickness changes, as is commonly observed in continuous fibre-reinforced laminates during forming,

cannot be accommodated. Unlike a monolithic metallic sheet, CFRTs are effectively inextensible in the direction of their reinforcement and thus severely limited in the range of possible in-plane deformations that they can undergo. Therefore, die conformity can only be achieved by means J of how processes such as transverse how, inter- and intraply slip and inter-ply rotation. The latter not only leads to local changes in fibre orientation between adjacent plies but also causes considerable thickness variations in the laminate .. In view of this apparent deficiency, diaphragm forming has become a very interesting alternative to the matched-die technique. Over the last few years extensive investigations into diaphragm forming with disposable superplastic alloy and polymer diaphragms have been carried out with promising results -6. Commonly, this process only employs a female mould to form a part which means that principally no restrictions are imposed on locally occurring thickness variations in the laminate. When forming fibre matrix systems, such as GFE P, with processing temperatures below 2SoC, reusable silicone rubber diaphragms have proved to be very suitable since their pronounced stretchability of up to 500% allows fairly high drawing ratios. In addition, using the diaphragms as a vacuum bag, loosely stacked sequences of plies can be consolidated i?z sin.4 and pre-consolidation of laminates-as is normally required for matched-die forming-becomes unnecessary.

183

Matched-die

versus diaphragm

forming: J. Krebs et al.

(a) Interply Shearing

(b) lntraply Shearing

(c) Intrayfhearing

3-Ply Specimen

Single Ply Specimen

Figure 1 Inter-ply and intra-ply shearing

MATERIAL DETAILS

PROPERTIES

AND EXPERIMENTAL

The thermoplastic prepreg used for simple shearing tests and forming of the spherical dome parts was Plytron@, a continuous glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene (35 vol.%). The material was supplied as a 240 mm wide tape with a nominal thickness of 0.47 mm. Regarding the thermal properties of this material it is to be noted that polypropylene crystallises with considerable supercooling, typically 30-4OC, depending on the cooling rate. The maximum heat capacity at constant pressure (c,) on cooling, therefore, occurs at a much lower temperature than during heating This means, that when the solid polymer is heated . above melting temperature, which is at about 17OC, it remains deformable down to a temperature of 125C upon cooling. This phenomenon allows thermoforming within a fairly wide temperature window providing the blanks are heated well above melt temperature prior to forming . In order to ensure the comparability of the results obtained with the two different forming techniques, the same spherical dome-shaped mould was employed in both cases. With a diameter-to-depth ratio of 2.00 (diameter = 200 mm, depth = 100 mm) and a bend radius of 7 mm at the flange comer, the mould cavity represented a geometry that might become difficult to form. Due to the thermal properties of the Plytron material, as described above, all forming experiments were conducted under non-isothermal conditions using [0, 901 s laminates.

01 0 5 10 Forming 15 Speed v [mmlmin] 20 25

Figure 2

Results of the inter-ply

shearing experiments

INTER- AND INTRA-PLY

SHEARING

TESTS

Prior to the matched-die and double diaphragm forming experiments, a series of shearing tests were conducted with the aim to quantitatively estimate the magnitude of shear stresses required to induce inter-ply and intra-ply slip. Based on the investigations by Scherer et ~1. ~~, experiments using three different types of specimen were conducted employing a Zwick Universal Testing Machine, Figure 1. In order to measure inter-ply shear stresses, the centre ply of a pre-consolidated three-ply laminate was pulled out at a constant speed. The temperature was

controlled by two heated platens which surrounded but not physically touched the laminate. The pull-out speed was varied from 1 to 22 mm/min and the temperatures from 180 to 220C. The shear stress, 7, during inter-ply slip was calculated by dividing the measured load with the actual shearing area. Figure 2 shows that the magnitude of inter-ply shear stress is strongly dependent on the laminate temperature s and the speed at which the centre ply is pulled out. As expected, highest shear stress levels were measured at low temperatures (180C) and a high pull-out speed (22 mm/min). For the intra-ply shear tests two different specimens were used, Figure lb and c. The shear stresses were measured following the same procedure as for the inter-ply shear tests. First, single ply shearing experiments were conducted using specimens as shown in Figure lb. Due to the inhomogenous distribution of fibres over the width of the prepreg tape, two different shear levels were measured. Either the shear stresses measured were similar to those obtained for inter-ply shearing or significantly higher. A closer inspection of the Plytron material showed, that the prepregs principally consisted of a sequence of fibre bundles placed next to one another over the width of a ply. Therefore, intra-ply shearing could only be measured when the shear plane was located directly within a fibre bundle. Due to the scatter in the results obtained with single ply

184

Matched-die

versus diaphragm

forming: J. Krebs et al.

600 ,

10

15

20

25

Forming Speed v [mmlmin] Figure 3

Results

of the intra-ply

shearing

experiments

with two-ply
Figure 5

specimen\ Matched-die formed part (left) and diaphragm formed part (right)

Male Die (Stemper)

Lammate Thickness

Distribution [mm]

Prqected

Ftbro Orientation

f
.

Blank

Female Die

Figure 4

Sketch of matched-die

forming set-up

specimens, additional experiments were done using two-ply specimens as depicted in Figure Ic. The results obtained with this method are shown in Figure 3. Here, the level of shear stresses was consistently 30-50 times higher than that in inter-ply shearing mode. From these results it can be concluded that due to the significant differences in shear stress levels, inter-ply slip will be the dominating flow mechanism in 3-D forming processes with CFRT laminates. In addition, laminates consisting of thin prepreg plies should form more easily since more planes, where inter-ply slip occurs, can be accommodated in a laminate of given thickness.

_ 0

Areas with In-plane Wrinkling Areas with Out-of-plane Bucklmg

Surface Fibre Directon Sub-surface Fibre Directwn

Figure 6

Laminate thickness distribution and projected tibre orientation of a matched-die formed component (initial laminate thickness 1.80 mm)

MATCHED-DIE

FORMING

The set-up of the matched-die forming device which was mounted onto a Zwick Universal Testing Machine is schematically illustrated in Figure 4. In order to form a spherical dome part, the pre-heated laminate was placed on top of the female die and held in place with a clamping plate. To prevent quenching before the inception of forming, a heat insulation plate was placed inbetween the blank and the clamping plate. The force on the clamping plate was adjusted by disc springs located between the upper crossbeam and the clamping plate. All components were formed at a speed of 30 mm/s. As can be seen in Figure 5 (left) the resulting parts from matched-die forming expectedly exhibit a very smooth and glossy surface finish around the apex of the dome section

due to the smooth surface of the matching dies. Towards the flange area, however, the situation changes significantly and severe out-of-plane wrinkling in both surfaces are observed. A projection of the thickness distribution measured by slicing the part into thin strips along the surface fibre direction (0) is shown in Figure 6. With an initial blank thickness of 1.88 mm considerable thinning was observed around the apex of the dome section. The flange exhibited fairly uniform thickness with an overall tendency to thicken. This result may be explained by examining the individual sections of the forming process in conjunction with the deformation mechanisms they induce. In the first phase of the forming stroke the male die or the stamper touches the centre of the clamped laminate, pushing it down into the female cavity. This means, that the initially flat laminate is shaped by draping it onto the surface of the male die. As the male die moves towards its matching counterpart, the laminate, virtually inextensible in the fibre directions. has to travel with it, which is, however, severely hampered by the clamping frame. Thus induced tension leads to excessive transverse flow away from the centre of the laminate. consequently resulting in substantial thinning

185

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Matched-die

versus diaphragm

forming:

J. Krebs et al.

into a female die in contrast to matched die forming that drapes it onto a stamper. This way, even in absence of a clamping plate, sufficient clamping forces are obtained since the outer regions of the sandwiched laminate are pressed onto the flange of the die before the central part is drawn into the cavity. Furthermore, additional tensile stresses are superimposed by the diaphragms due to their ability to locally stretch, which reduces or evens out the

compressive stresses in the laminate thus prevents compressive instabilities

during forming from occurring.

and

THERMOFORMING

SCALED

DOWN YACHT HULLS

Figure 9

Photograph of the yacht hull forming set-up

In a final series of thermoforming experiments it was intended to verify the findings from spherical dome experiments on another, arbitrarily selected 3-D shape. For this purpose, a scaled down yacht hull (length = 600 mm, width = 180 mm, depth = 100 mm) was selected. The prepreg material used for this experiment was a newly improved Plytronm provided by Borealis. It exhibited a more homogeneous fibre distribution and the ply thickness was only 0.24 mm in comparison to 0.47 mm of the previous version. This means that for a given laminate thickness twice as many plies can be accommodated. Consequently, the number of planes where inter-ply slip can occur is then doubled which should positively affect the material s formability. The forming set-up for both matched-die and diaphragm forming is shown in Figure 0. The externally pre-heated laminates were thermoformed into cold dies following the same procedure as described earlier for the spherical dome parts. Two different lay-ups were employed in order to form parts with an equal number of inter-ply planes, [O, 901,. but also ones with the same

2cm
Figure 10 Matched-die bow of yacht hull (top) and double-diaphragm (bottom) formed Figure 11 Matched-die (top) and double-diaphragm ibottom) formed tail of yacht hull

187

Matched-die

versus diaphragm

forming:

J. Krebs et al.

laminate thickness as the spherical dome parts, [0, 901zs. Figures 10 and 11 show a comparison of the bow and tail section of the matched-die and diaphragm formed components. It can be seen that the matched-die formed parts exhibit visible wrinkling in such particular areas in contrast to the diaphragm formed ones which do not show any instabilities. The reason for the differences in part quality can again be explained by the fact that the matched-die forming hampers inter-ply rotation or trellising which is necessary to achieve full die conformity in the bow and tail section of the hull. With diaphragm forming both types of laminates employed, [0, 901, and [0, 901zs, thus led to satisfactory results and all parts were formed without considerable faults. In matcheddie forming mode however, doubling the total number of plies in the laminate actually led to a more pronounced occurrence of wrinkles in the critical bow and tail section of the yacht hull. Regarding the surface finish, however, it has to be noted that all matched-die formed parts were very smooth and glossy in contrast to the diaphragm formed ones which had mat and slightly rougher surfaces.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for the financial support of the present project (FR 67547-2) and offering a Guest Professorship to D. Bhattacharyya. In addition, the authors would also like to express their appreciation to Michael Temes for his contribution to the present work in the course of his final year project at the University of Kaiserslautem. In addition, K. Friedrich is grateful to the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie for supporting his personal research activities in 1997.

REFERENCES
1. 2. Cogswell, F. N., Thermoplastic Aromatic Polymer Composites. Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd, Oxford, 1992. Velisaris, C. N. and Seferis, J. C., Heat transfer effects on the processing-structure relationships of polyetheretherketone (PEEK) Science and Engineering of Composite based composites. Materials, 1988, l(l), 13-22. Mallon, P. J., O Bridaigh, C. M. and Pipes, R. B., Polymeric diaphragm forming of continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic matrix composites. Composites, 1989, 20(l), 48-56. Barnes, A. J. and Cattanach, J. B., Advances in thermoplastic composite fabrication technology. In Proc. of the Materials Engineering Conference. Leeds. 1985. Ostrom, R. B., Koch, S. B. and Wirz-Safranek, D. L., Thermoplastic composite fighter forward fuselage. SAMPE Quarterly, 1989, 3945. Monaghan, M. R. and Mallon, P. J., Development of a computer controlled autoclave for forming thermoplastic composites. Composites Manufacturing, 1990, l(l), 8-14. Krebs, J., Friedrich, K. and Bhattachryya, D., 3-D thermoforming of continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastics using the diaphragm forming technique. In Proc 3rd International Conference on Flow Processes in Composite Materials. University College, Galway, Ireland, 1994, pp. 3-14. Cuff, G., Fibre reinforced industrial thermoplastic composites. ICI Ltd, UK, private communication, 1993. Mander, S. J., Bhattacharyya, D. and Collins, I. F., Roll forming of fibre reinforced thermoplastic sheet. In Proc. 10th lntemational Conference on Composite Materials, Vol. 3, ed. A. Poursatrip and K. Street. Woodhead Publishing Ltd, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 413420. Scherer, R. and Friedrich, K., Inter- and intraply-slip flow processes Composites during thermoforming of CF/PP-laminates. Manufacturing, 1991, 2(2), 92-96. Scherer, R., Charakterisierung des Zwischenlagenabgleitens beim Thermoformen van kontinuierlich faserverstiirkten PolypropylenLaminaten. VDI-Verlag GmbH, Diisseldorf, Reihe 5, Nr. 288, 1993, pp. 26-54. Martin, T. A., Christie, G. R. and Bhattacharyya D., Grid strain analysis and its application in composite sheet forming. In Composite Sheet Forming, Vol. 11, ed. D. Bhattacharyya, Composite Materials Series. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, pp. 217-246. Cattanach, J. B., Cuff, G. and Cogswell, F. N., The processing of thermoplastics containing high loading of land and continuous reinforcing fibres. Journal of Polymer Engineering, 1986,6, 345-361. Rivlin, R. S., Networks of inextensible cords. In Nonlinear Problems of Engineering. Academic Press, New York, 1964, pp. 51-64. Spencer, A. J. M., Deformations of Fibre Reinforced Materials. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972.

3.

4.

CONCLUDING

REMARKS
5.

The salient findings are summarised

as follows:
6.

The resistance of Plytron to intra-ply slip is about 50 times higher than that during inter-ply shear. As a consequence if sufficient matrix material is available between two plies or fibre bundles, the inter-ply slip mode will dominate. Domes produced by both matched-die and diaphragm forming techniques reveal considerable thinning around the apex area and the compressive strain generated due to the trellis action of the essentially inextensible fibre network is accommodated by either laminate thickening or out-of-plane buckling. The constraints imposed by matching dies generally produces a better surface finish in matched-die forming and the flange thickness variation is slightly less severe compared to that for double diaphragm forming which allows free trellis-flow. However, at the same time the matched-die forming restricts the material movement which generally leads to severe outof-plane buckling in the produced components. In-plane wrinkling is present in domes produced by both techniques and this may be attributed to the relative movements of the fibres in the two adjoining layers of a deforming laminate. The free material flow accompanied by the tension put on the laminate by stretching diaphragms also appear to help in avoiding the out-of-plane buckling in diaphragm formed products.

I.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

188