Paper number 574

MEASUREMENT OF MANUFACTURINGB DISTORTION IN FLAT COMPOSITE LAMINATES

Donald W. Radford, Shenghong Fu, Daniel Derringer, and Jonathan D. Davis

Composite Materials, Manufacture and Structures Laboratory Mechanical
Engineering Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado, USA 80523-1374

Summary Distortion in composites during manufacture has been noted by many authors and has been attributed to numerous sources. Past efforts have shown manufacturing distortion in complex shaped components to be related to the anisotropy introduced by differences in the in-plane and through-thickness properties. However, this explanation does not account for all distortions observed, and in particular, does not explain distortion in flat laminates. To further understand the sources of manufacturing distortion in flat laminates experiments measuring the distorted shape, at both room temperature and elevated temperatures, have been performed. The factors evaluated include the tooling material, the interaction between the tool and the composite, and the degree of resin bleed during processing. It is observed that varying the interaction between the tool and composite significantly effects the degree of distortion, as does the amount of resin bled. Further, results indicate that the major portion of the distortion in these flat laminates is not affected by changing measurement temperature.
Keywords distortion, warpage, composites manufacture, part/tool interaction, volume fraction gradient, quantitative optical microscopy.

Theme : Processing, Integrated Design and Manufacturing

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