Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Infusion processes offer great potential for accelerating the production of aerospace polymer composite parts and reducing unit costs when compared with traditional prepreg-based techniques. However, producing carbon fibre preforms to the complex shapes of 3D composite parts by assembling multiple layers of the thin reinforcements is slow and labour-intensive. Furthermore, preforming from thin reinforcements leads to high variability in production and final performance. In industrial practice the slow pace, cost and variability associated with preforming from thin 2D reinforcements negate the potential advantages of infusion-based composite manufacturing processes. A limited group of innovative fabric manufacturers have recently started offering different types of 3D reinforcements. They are available at fibre volume fractions similar to those of the composite parts. Hence de-bulking during manufacture is no longer necessary. The ""3D Textile Carbon Fibre Preforms"" project aims at producing near net shape 3D textile preforms for fast manufacture by infusion of complex shape composite parts. Commercially available 3D reinforcements will be tested as well as some produced by new technologies developed in parallel by project partners. Several assembly techniques for 3D textiles will be evaluated for their performance and speed. A characterization of the reinforcement formability as well as the mechanical performance of corresponding composite samples will be performed at all stages of the project in order to select the best 3D textiles and assembly techniques. These will be used to produce several demonstrator parts corresponding to scalable complex 3D geometries. This technology seeks to simplify and improve the reproducibility of preforms and composite parts manufacture. The research team includes experts in 3D weaving, resin infusion, textile reinforcement structures, preforming, fabric shaping, part design, as well as textile and composite mechanics and evaluation. The project is also based on a strong partnership with industrial leaders in textiles, composites and in the aerospace industry. Such partnership will benefit the introduction of this technology in the Canadian industry.