Properties of a thermoplastic composite skin-stiffener interface in a stiffened structure manufactured by laser-assisted tape placement with in situ consolidation

Aswani Kumar Bandaru, Gearóid Clancy, Daniël Peeters, Ronan M. O'Higgins*, Paul M. Weaver

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)
61 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

A critically important consideration of stiffened structural panels is the interfacial properties between skin and stiffener. In the present study a novel implementation of laser-assisted tape placement (LATP) was used to produce a representative skin-stiffener of a wingbox from carbon fibre reinforced PEEK. First, a stiffener is manufactured using this method and subsequently the skin is attached using the same method without need for a secondary bonding process. The interfacial properties between the skin and stiffener have been characterised in terms of interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and fracture toughness (Mode-I and Mode-II) properties. LATP laydown direction and laser power was found to influence the skin-stiffener interface Mode-I fracture toughness, but not affect the Mode-II fracture toughness. The values of ILSS and fracture toughness compare favourably with those results reported in the literature, in particular for those reported for equivalent aerospace certified CF/PEEK material (APC-2).
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)123-131
Number of pages9
JournalComposite Structures
Volume214
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Automated fibre placement
  • Interface properties
  • Mechanical testing
  • Thermoplastic

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