Tailored Fiber Placement

Using the Tailored Fiber Placement (TFP) technology allows an requirement-adapted placement and fixation of fiber and filament yarns on textile fabrics, and makes entirely textile preforms possible. TFP technology can also be used to realize a retroactive application of locally load-adapted reinforcement threads onto textile reinforcement semi-finished products for fiber-reinforced plastic composites (FRPC) applications. Knowing the load cases likely to occur in (locally reinforceable) textile semi-finished products made from preforms, and in FRPCs produced from them, a simulation-based strain analysis can be used to calculate optimized, load-flow-adapted yarn placement courses, which can then be fixed to various textile carrier structures like multiaxial non-crimp fabrics or woven fabrics.

Further applications for the TFP technology are in the functionalization of textile fabrics for smart textiles or in the integration of electronic or sensory components in FRPC structures. This way, the application of electrically conductive yarns allows simple electric tracking and complex circuits alike. The two-dimensional degrees of freedom during thread placement by TFP in particular allow the production of requirement-adapted, textile-based in-situ sensor arrangements, for instance in the form of strain gauges applied for reinforcement semi-finished products for a structural monitoring of FRPC components in multiaxial strain scenarios.

The ITM uses an SGY 0200-650D special embroidery machine produced by ZSK Stickmaschinen GmbH, for technical embroidery applications with a workable area of 1,500 x 1,400 mm² and multifunctional embroidery heads with oscillating thread laying devices. This allows a damage-less fixation of the reinforcement threads at any desired placement outline of any complexity and at a repetition accuracy of ± 0.3 min^-1.