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Sandwich panels are commonly used as structure, based on fiber reinforced composites, with the goal of high flexural stiffness and low mass. It is most common to separate two high performance composite facesheets with a low-density core, generally in the form of a foam or honeycomb. A recent concept has been to replace these traditional core materials with fiber reinforced truss-like structures, with the goal of further reducing mass. A system is described that can radically reduce the amount of tooling required for truss core sandwich panel manufacture. This system, which is a digital manufacturing platform for the extrusion of continuous fiber reinforced commingled glass fiber/PET tow, was developed to demonstrate the rigidization of composites both on, and off, a tool surface. Navtruss core panels were successfully manufactured using this digital manufacturing platform, without conventional tooling, and the resulting through thickness compression moduli and panel shear moduli were within 14.6% and 23% of the values baseline compression molded specimens. Thus, the results suggest that, with further development, complex truss core structures with performance approaching that of compression molded panels can be manufactured with radically reduced tooling requirements from high volume fraction, continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic matrix composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the development of digitally manufactured, commingled tow continuous fiber reinforced composites, consolidation force was controlled using a controlled spring force that yielded a repeatable tow width. However, the use of the extruder face to consolidate the material requires that the extruder remain perpendicular to the placement surface throughout the process. When considering more complex tool contours including sloped surfaces, more than three axes of motion are necessary to maintain the perpendicularity of the extruder tip to the surface. In this effort, a five-axis system is developed and used to demonstrate the ability to consolidate over complex contours. In addition, the nozzle face temperatures required for good consolidation and wetout result in poor tow path fidelity when complex paths are introduced. The implementation of an automated, computer-controlled localized cooling system enables both good wetout and consolidation while also enabling more accurate changes in tow path due to improvements in local tow tack. With the development of the five-axis system it is also shown that the tow width can be adjusted by rotating the existing placement nozzle to angles not equal to 90°. Thus, through a combination of controlled localized cooling and real-time control of the nozzle angle, a possible approach to control of tow width, independent of the tow placement angle and radius of curvature during tow steering, is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct digital manufacturing of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastics exhibits the potential to relieve many of the constraints placed on the current design and manufacture of composite structures. At present, the additive manufacturing of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastics is demonstrated to varying extents; however, a comprehensive investigation of manufacturing defects and the quality of additively manufactured high fiber volume fraction continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites is limited. Considering the preliminary nature of the additive manufacturing of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastics, composites processed in this manner are typically subject to various manufacturing defects, including excessive void content in the thermoplastic matrix. Generally, quality evaluation of processed composites in the literature is limited to test methods that are largely influenced by the properties of the continuous fiber reinforcement, and as such, defects in the thermoplastic matrix are usually less impactful on the results and are often overlooked. Hardware to facilitate the direct digital manufacturing of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic matrix composites was developed, and specimens were successfully processed with intentionally varied void content. The quality of the additively manufactured specimens was then evaluated in terms of the measured maximum storage modulus, maximum loss modulus, damping factor and the glass transition temperature by means of dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). DMA allows for thermomechanical (i.e., highly matrix sensitive) evaluation of the composite specimens, specifically in terms of the measured elastic storage modulus, viscous loss modulus, damping factor and the glass transition temperature. Within the tested range of void contents from roughly 4–10%, evaluation by DMA resulted in a distinct reduction in the maximum measured storage modulus, maximum loss modulus and glass transition temperature with increasing void content, while the damping factor increased. Thus, the results of this work, which focused on the effect of void content on DMA measured properties, have demonstrated that DMA exhibits multi-faceted sensitivity to the presence of voids in the additively manufactured continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic specimens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]