Resin Infusible Carbon Fiber Unidirectional Broadgoods for Fatigue Dominated Applications

The development of a low-cost permeable unidirectional carbon fabric material without fiber undulation is needed in order to provide full property translation that is comparable to unidirectional prepreg. In this Phase I effort, Composites Automation LLC proposes to fabricate unidirectional carbon broadgood using thermoplastic binder with high enough permeability of the fabric to allow infusion processing. Particle loading will be minimum, but sufficient to bind the spread tows together and provide toughening and improved mechanical properties of the part after cure. The fabric microstructure can be controlled using the proposed process, has no fiber crimp and does not rely on local stitches to hold the fibers in place. Process throughput can be significant for lower particle fraction systems and is anticipated to be faster than any industrial NCF machine and be an ideal process to reduce cost.