Compared with traditional textile materials, the new carbon fiber composites exhibit good fabric forming properties.
On May 15, the American Association for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA) is a public and private joint organization that accelerates the development of composite materials and processes in the United States. Fibrtec (Atlanta, TX) and Purdue University's project collaboration (Wilmington, DE, USA) completed the first phase of the study. The conclusion of the first stage demonstrates that the preparation of the new carbon fiber composite exhibits good fabric formability compared to conventional textile materials. The first phase of the results drove the second phase of the project and may reduce the cost of the carbon fiber composite structure, making it more suitable for high volume adoption in automotive and other industries.
The new materials developed through the IACMI project combine Fibrtec's flexible coated tows, Fibrflex, DuPont's Rapid Fabric Forming (RFF) technology and proprietary DuPont polyamide resins, all of which are modeled at Purdue University and Performed with the support of characterization capabilities. The coated tow material is a partially impregnated carbon fiber and polyamide composite tow wherein the carbon fibers are not completely wetted by the polyamide, resulting in a tow material that is softer than the fully impregnated fibers. The RFF process is a method of fabricating a fabric having a tow in different directions without the need to lift the tow during processing. It has been reported that experiments, modeling and simulations show that this process and material combination method is a promising method for producing low cost continuous fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) thermoplastics that are well suited during the molding process. Meet the requirements.
IACMI CEO John A. Hopkins said: "Through the second phase of the project, we will more fully describe the new carbon fiber thermoplastic prepreg form and verify that they are suitable for high rates. Cost-sensitive molding processes. This will demonstrate whether they are suitable for large-scale applications, especially in the automotive industry, which is an important part of our long-term goal of reducing energy use."
