| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2024 ASC Technical Conference, US-Japan Joint Symposium, D30 Meeting
|
| Symposium
|
2024 ASC Technical Conference, US-Japan Joint Symposium, D30 Meeting
|
| Presentation Title |
Nondestructive Inspection Method to Characterize Thermoset Prepreg Quality and the Effect of Material Process Conditions on Formability |
| Author(s) |
Loren James Tomlin, Thomas A Cender, Nicholas Shevchenko, Suresh G Advani |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Loren James Tomlin |
| Abstract Scope |
TuFF (Tailorable universal Feedstock for Forming) is a highly aligned discontinuous fiber composite that
can achieve the high-performance properties of continuous fiber composites as well as the formability of short fiber
composites as a result of lamina extensibility in the fiber direction. An experimental methodology has been
established to characterize material formability and define forming strain limits. To demonstrate that the data is
repeatable, a new methodology is developed to characterize the variability in the material quality in its initial
uncured state before forming. In this work, ultrasonic C-scan imaging has been adapted for uncured, thermoset
prepreg. The level of transmission through the uncured prepreg sample is used as a quality control metric that is
repeatable for a set of prepreg processing conditions defined by temperature, pressure and time. Results suggest that
signal attenuation is primarily affected by the level of porosity, which is influenced by consolidation pressure,
delamination defects, and resin impregnation. Defects can be detected in a C-scan of uncured thermoset prepreg
before forming, and by scanning samples under varying vacuum pressures, sensitivity to consolidation porosity is
decoupled from impregnation porosity which has a more significant impact on transmission. Using this NDI method,
formability can be evaluated for different prepreg process conditions due to their effect on material impregnation.
Finding process conditions that reduce testing variability is key to a well-defined and repeatable process window for
TuFF prepregs. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Definite: Post-meeting proceedings |