Continuous ultrasonic welding of thermoplastic composites: Enhancing the weld uniformity by changing the energy director
B.C.P. Jongbloed (TU Delft - Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies)
Julie Teuwen (TU Delft - Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies)
G. Palardy (TU Delft - Structural Integrity & Composites)
I. F. Villegas (TU Delft - Aerospace Structures & Computational Mechanics)
Rinze Benedictus (TU Delft - Structural Integrity & Composites)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Continuous ultrasonic welding is a high-speed joining method for thermoplastic composites. Currently, a thin film energy director is used to focus the heat generation at the interface. However, areas of intact energy director remain in the welded seam, which significantly lowers the weld strength, and result in a non-uniformly welded seam. To improve the weld uniformity of continuous ultrasonically welded joints, we changed to a more compliant energy director. A woven polymer mesh energy director was found to give a significant improvement in weld quality. The mesh was flattened in between the composite adherends during the welding process. This flattening promoted a good contact between the energy director and the adherends, fully wetting the adherend surfaces, resulting in a more uniformly welded seam without areas of intact energy director.
help_outline