Continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite materials are viewed favorably by the industry as a means of providing light weighting with attractive mass production prospects.  These new materials however are costlier than incumbent materials and hence, multi-material hybrid structures, that blend continuous fiber composites with lower-cost options such as chopped fiber composites and metals are becoming attractive propositions for many industries. The advantage of this multi-material approach when properly designed, is that it selectively uses continuous fiber composites where the load path is the highest and lower cost injection molding compounds in other regions.   This also ensures that fast production cycle times can be achieved with the traditional installed equipment base.  Under this approach, while the continuous fiber composite takes its place along the main load axis, other functional details can be integrated using the injection molding material, thereby eliminating the need for costly separate production steps. In this way, the high mechanical performance can still be realized, without the high cost associated with these materials and the associated production equipment.<br/> <br/>Having said that, there are some significant challenges that the industry as a whole faces.  These include, driving higher confidence  in designing and characterizing these material systems, development of adequate process models that can drive process optimization, process automation to drive down the cost of parts production, going beyond the lab, pilot plant all the way to the industrial-scale in terms of robust process upscaling, industrial scale thermoplastic composite recycling and last but not least, a healthy knowledge base of resources experienced with continuous fiber thermoplastic composites.  Most of these experienced resources currently reside in the aerospace industry.  In this talk, we will cover what these challenges are as well as the approach SABIC has taken to introduce continuous fiber thermoplastic based hybrid composite solutions.<br/>

Thermoplastic composite solutions for mass markets: Opportunities and challenges

256th National Meeting (2018)

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