One shot manufacturing of a highly integrated structure by automatic lamination with thermoplastic composite materials

During the last years, the benefits of using carbon reinforced thermoplastic composite materials (CRTP) have been questioned and defended (enumerating some benefits: higher fatigue resistance, greater toughness, better durability, reprocesability, recyclability and so on), they are considered as a future innovative technology allowing highly integrated structures, impacting in weight reduction and reducing energetic costs by using out of autoclave processes. Therefore, (CRTP) could be considered as a future substitute of metallic materials and composite materials based on thermoset matrices for aerospace applications, automotive and other industries. Under the frame of the OUTCOME project (Clean Sky II), the design and analysis of the Upper Skin (upper coverage of a stiffened wing) for the military aircraft C295 is developed, a medium tactical transport aircraft of Airbus Defence and Space (ADS). The selected material for the work is the unidirectional composite material APC2/AS4, supplied by Solvay, with PEEK as the thermoplastic matrix and carbon fibre as the reinforcement. Flat panels, detailed elementals and sub-elementals have been manufactured; all of them have been widely characterized attempting to obtain the required design allowable. Moreover, with the goal of cost reduction, productivity increases and environmental impact control, the manufacturing selected processes were: a) Hot-forming in oven and/or self- heated toolings for stringers manufacturing and b) Automatic lamination in one step for the co-consolidation (full-integration) of the skin with the stringers. This review shows the different applied steps to manufacture a detailed element for a later structural test.