热塑性复合材料在线成型设备研究进展

DEVELOPMENTS IN ON-LINE PROCESSING EQUIPMENT OF THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITES

热压罐成型技术已经成为制备超大尺寸航天飞行器的技术瓶颈,在线成型技术成为非热压罐成型技术的研究重点。然而,在线成型技术制备的热塑性复合材料性能只能达到传统热压罐成型技术的80%。消除与热压罐成型复合材料性能20%差距的关键在于突破在线成型设备中热辅助铺放头的设计制造技术,从工艺装备方面消除或降低影响热塑性复合材料性能的不利因素。本文介绍了在线成型设备的研究和发展过程,比较了两种主流热辅助铺放头即燃气辅助铺放头和激光辅助铺放头的优势和劣势。结合前期的实验结果,提出了激光辅助铺放头的技术指标,并对国内在线成型设备的发展前景进行了展望。

Autoclave technologies are becoming the technical bottlenecks to manufacture very large aerospace crafts. On the other hand, on-line consolidation technologies are becoming the research priorities in the field of out-of autoclave process. However, the properties of the thermoplastic composites generated from the on-line consolidation technologies are 80% of the properties generated from the autoclave technologies. The solution to eliminate the 20% gap between the on-line consolidation and the autoclave technologies is making breakthroughs on manufacturing heat-assisted placement heads. As a result, we can eliminate or decrease the disadvantage effect on the properties of the thermoplastic composites from manufacturing sides. This paper introduced the researches and developments of the processing equipment for thermoplastic composites. We compared the advantages and disadvantages of the main heat-assisted placement heads, namely gas-assisted placement heads and laser-assisted placement heads. Based on the results from previous experiments, we proposed the technical indexes of the laser-assisted placement heads and then summed up the practical problems need to be solved for the on-line consolidation technologies.