The history and modernization of thermoplastic composites

     The next two decades will be a very busy period for aircraft manufacturers, and thermoplastic composites are preparing to take full advantage of this opportunity. According to Boeing's 2020-2039 Commercial Market Outlook, by 2039, there will be 48,400 commercial aircraft flying globally, an increase of 22,500 from 2019. At the same time, airlines are speeding up the replacement cycle of old aircraft to improve the efficiency and sustainability of their fleet. Thermoplastic composites can help aerospace manufacturers meet this rapidly growing demand.

     Thermoplastics provide many advantages to the aerospace industry. Lightweight carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) parts have excellent strength and stiffness, corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, fatigue resistance and durability. Their performance is usually better than equivalent metal parts.

     Thermoplastic composite structural parts are lighter than corresponding metal parts, allowing airlines to reduce fuel and carbon emissions. At the same time, thermoplastic composites are also a sustainable material. It is recyclable, so manufacturers can melt and reuse materials from production waste and scrapped parts.

     In the past ten years or so, the layout, integration, and part molding processes used for thermoplastics are almost similar to those for thermosets, such as the autoclave process, which can take several hours. With the development of materials and manufacturing, it is possible to speed up production, and by using automated equipment and non-autoclave processes, manufacturers can produce higher-quality thermoplastic composite structural parts at a faster rate, making them into aircraft A cost-effective option for production, so in recent years, designers have increasingly preferred to use thermoplastic composites.

Material progress

     The consistency of materials is essential for rapid, large-scale production and automation, and the rapid development of thermoplastic unidirectional belts has gradually attracted attention in the industry and has led to changes in the materials used in the manufacture of thermoplastics.

     Aerospace designers mainly use continuous fiber thermoplastics to achieve the required strength and performance predictability of aircraft parts, but continuous fiber materials have some disadvantages when manufacturing complex parts. Generally, the molding speed of these parts is very fast, and it is a challenge to combine the fibers and plies in a very short time (usually a few seconds), but if discontinuous fiber materials are used, their performance is worrying.

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