JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #96 - April 2015 - 62

braiding

Tape braiding: high-performance fibrereinforced thermoplastic profile structures
Braiding of fully consolidated unidirectional fibre-reinforced
thermoplastic (FRT) tapes is a key process step to manufacture
semi-finished and functionalized carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) profile structures.

Dipl.-Ing. Christian Garthaus, Dipl.-Ing. Daniel
Barfuss, Dipl.-Ing. Bernhard Witschel,
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Maik Gude
Institute of Lightweight Engineering and
Polymer Technology, Technical University of
Dresden

Tape braiding and processing
of tape preforms

cientists from the Institute of
Lightweight Engineering and
Polymer Technology (ILK) of
the Technical University Dresden (TU
Dresden) have developed a highly efficient, automatable preforming process
for structurally-loaded fibre-reinforced
thermoplastic (FRT) profile structures.
The so-called tape preforms are manufactured from fully consolidated fibrereinforced unidirectional thermoplastic
slit tapes in a novel tape braiding process.
At the ILK, application-adapted tape
preforms are a key product in multiple
process chains to efficiently manufacture
semi-finished and functionalized FRT
profile structures (see Fig. 1).

Multiple advantages arise from using
pre-consolidated tapes in combination
with an adapted braiding technology
(see Fig. 2). The specially developed
tape preform production equipment
used at the ILK in Dresden enables
the simultaneous, automatable braiding of up to 576 individual tapes in
one single braiding step. This facilitates the manufacturing of near-netshape preforms of up to three metres
in diameter. The achievable high processing speeds make the thermoplastic
tape braiding technique predestined
for large-scale industrial production.
Braided preforms in general offer a
high degree of design flexibility in
terms of curvature and cross-section

Fig. 1: Basic process chain for manufacturing tape-based FRT profile structures

62 jec composites magazine / No96 April 2015

variation. By adapting the braiding
architecture and local integration of
additional axial tapes according to the
load situation, very high degrees of
lightweight design can be achieved for
the final thermoplastic CFRP structures, such as transmission shafts and
hydraulic pipes.
The use of pre-consolidated tapes
makes it possible to save the challenging and time-intensive process step
of impregnating the filaments with a
thermoplastic matrix material, which
in return opens an enormous potential to significantly reduce processing
time. The high impregnation quality
of available tapes, the aligned orientation of the fibres within the tape
and the high fibre volume content
have an additional positive impact on
both the achievable level of composite
quality and the mechanical properties
of the resulting fibre-thermoplastic
composite structures. In addition,
the use of tape preforms provides the
sensitive reinforcement fibres with
optimum protection against damage
during the textile manufacturing process, thus minimizing damage during
preforming.

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #96 - April 2015

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