Subproject B3: Methodical development and experimental investigation of form-locking and welded joints for textile-reinforced lightweight structures
Supervision
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Prof. E. h. Dr. h. c. Werner A. Hufenbach
TU Dresden
Institute of Lightweight Engineering and Polymer Technology
01062 Dresden
Germany
Phone: +49 351 463-38140
Fax: +49 351 463-38143
Abstract
In many sectors of the transportation industry, as well as in mechanical and plant engineering, joining and assembling techniques play a determining role für a company's competitiveness. Being so, the development of appropriate joining techniques and related assembly processes is of crucial importance for the successful usage of new textile thermoplastic composites. On the light of this need novel connection systems for flat, tubular and linear structures made of textile thermoplastic composites were successfully developed at the first phase of this project while in a second phase the further development of these promising approaches as well as the design and test of new joining concepts is planned.
In the development and testing of form-locking and combined joints, the specific mechanical properties of textile-reinforced thermoplastics as well as the components form shall be adapted to improve individual joining and assembling processes with minimal loss of structural response. On this way, the hot formability and weldabilty of this material allows for a flexible and effective design of form-locking joinings and welded material connections (see illustration below).
One of the promising developments from the first project phase is the patented continuos thermoplastic riveting (EFT) and the necessary hot-forming technology for the fabrication of rivet- and bolt holes. In order to shorten the assembling time for textile thermoplastic composite structures, a fabrication tool is to be developed and implemented, where the rivet-hole construction can ce integrated in the hot-forming process of the structure. For high-performance joints, such as hot-formed bolt holes, textile-adapted fastener-elements from continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastics and metallic materials shall be developed and tested.
Therefore, this innovative joining fabrication process satisfies the manufacturing restrictions without minimal loss of mechanical performance of the structure. The close work with other project partners, especially with the processing and construction-oriented subprojects D4 and E1, offers ideal conditions for the implemention of these tasks.
The newly developed asembling techniques are a crucial portion of the generic SFB demonstrator to be delivered at the final phase of this project.