Rapid manufacturing of composite structures made of fabric flax / polypropylene

Abstract

One of the major challenges of composites based on a thermoplastic matrix is to fabricate finished parts both in a single processing step and reduced time production. For this purpose, a stamping airflow device is here developed. It permits to produce the V-shaped composite parts made of a comingled flax / polypropylene fabrics only in a few minutes. This is particularly attractive to automotive production. First, preliminary tests and an optimization set of processing parameters are performed. Then, an assessment of the new technical manufacturing reliability of composites compared to mechanical properties of material prepared by a traditional thermo-compression process is presented.