| Popis: |
Infrared welding technology is currently used in the automotive industry to assemble very complex composite shapes made of short glass fiber reinforced polymers. Such applications are targeted more towards short joining times than towards the optimization of adhesive properties. Through this work, the authors joined their efforts on the experimental investigation of driving mechanisms and their optimization, enabling the welding of high-performance materials typically selected for aeronautics applications. The thermal field through the thickness and on the surface was investigated. The best configuration of the LM-PAEK/C laminate presented a single lap shear (SLS) strength of 43.5 MPa with a standard deviation of 0.7 MPa compared to a strength of 24.9 MPa with a standard deviation of 2.3 MPa obtained with the welding configuration without insulation. These results highlight the major effect of a thermal gradient during infrared welding. It is specific to infrared welding to observe that the major resulting defects are located not at the interface area but inside the composite substrate, where voids, generated during the heating step, are unable to be reconsolidated during pressure application. The impact of the decompaction behavior on the thermal gradient was studied through a MATLAB© implemented 1D numerical model, developed internally and called “LysIR”. |
