Influence of post-consolidation on material properties of continuous carbon-fibre reinforced additively manufactured specimens in tensile and bending testing

Description

Continuous carbon-fibre (CCF) additive manufacturing (AM) of composites has significant potential for production of optimised structures. However, stiffness and strength in parts are often significantly lower than manufacturer material data. For thermoset-impregnated CCF, post-consolidation of specimens has greatly increased strength. In this contribution, the effect of post-consolidation for thermoplastic CCF material is presented. Experimental testing is performed in tensile and four-point bending with as-printed and post-consolidated samples. The results show that tensile moduli are higher than manufacturer data, whilst bending moduli are closer to manufacturer data.The post-consolidation had little influence in tensile testing, but failure at the end tabs occurred in all specimens. In bending, the interlaminar bond was highly improved by the post-consolidation, giving experimental values close to nominal material strength and closely matching stiffness. In conclusion, bending moduli, tensile moduli, and tensile strength are not significantly increased by post-consolidation, and tensile specimen fracture at the end tabs. Significant improvement is found in bending strength because of increased layer bonding. For test method evaluation, tensile testing can be used for modulus estimation of thermoplastic CCF, however bending testing of post-consolidated specimens is best suited for strength estimation.

Period	19 Jul 2022
Event title	International Conference of Composite Structures ICCS25
Event type	Conference
Location	AustriaShow on map