CONTINUOUS HEATED ROLL FORMING OF THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITE MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROGRAM IS TO DEVELOP A CONTINUOUS PRODUCTION METHOD BASED ON THE USE OF CONTINUOUS FIBER REINFORCED THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITE MATERIAL. HEATED ROLL FORMING (HRF), AN ADAPTATION OF THE METAL ROLL FORMING PROCESS, IS TO BE USED BECAUSE OF ITS ABILITY TO PRODUCE A VERY BROAD RANGE OF SHAPES, SIZES, AND MATERIALS IN HIGH VOLUME AND THEREFORE LOW UNIT COST. THE APPROACH TO HRF PROCESS DEVELOPMENT IS TO SELECT AND DESIGN A REPRESENTATIVE COMPONENT, SELECT A SUITABLE THERMOPLASTIC MATERIAL AND MATERIAL FORM AND THEN DEVELOP HRF PROCESS PARAMETERS TO PRODUCE THE CHOSEN COMPONENT. AFTER FABRICATION TRIALS, A TEST COMPONENT IS LOADED TO VERIFY THE PROCESS, MATERIAL AND DESIGN. ANTICIPATED PHASE II FOLLOW-ON FUNDING COULD BE USED TO BUILD DEDICATED HRF MACHINERY, EXPAND THE RANGE OF APPLICATIONS, EXTEND THE CURRENT WORK TO OTHER MATRIX MATERIALS, AND EXPERIMENT WITH SECONDARY FORMING OPERATIONS.