Development of a Series Capable Production Process for Fiber‐Reinforced Composites with Thermoplastic Matrices and Material‐Integrated Piezoceramic Modules

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Fiber‐reinforced thermoplastic composites are widely used in technical applications, for example, in machine, automotive, and equipment industries. Reasons for this are the excellent and adaptable mechanical properties and the high potential of the associated manufacturing processes for a very efficient and resource‐efficient production with larger volumes. However, these lightweight structures often show high vibration amplitudes and high resulting sound radiation due to their reduced weight and moments of inertia, which results in a decreased vibro‐acoustic performance especially for dynamically loaded applications. Besides passive damping measures, active vibration control using piezoelectric transducers is a suitable option. The layer‐wise built‐up of the fiber‐reinforced composites enables the integration of additional elements, such as flat sensors and actuators into this layup. This offers the possibility to embed piezoceramic modules to create function‐integrative components, which are able to sense or generate vibrations. A main challenge for a successfully transfer of this technology into industrial applications is the development of appropriate series‐capable manufacturing processes for integrating piezoceramic modules into composite structures. This contribution is intended to show a possibility to realize such a process. Here, the basic idea is to use thermoplastic polymers as matrix and raw materials in order to enable very efficient and fast production processes. But the major advantages of this new material concept, short cycle times, and relatively simple processing tools can only be facilitated, if some challenges, especially in regard to press processes, are overcome. The processing temperatures of thermoplastic based composites are higher than those for thermoset matric based composites. Integrating the piezoceramic modules, the Curie temperature may be exceeded, which will cause the depolarization of the piezoceramic elements. The presented newly developed manufacturing technology pays special attention to this fact. For the first time, this technology allows to realize a one shot technology for fiber‐reinforced composites with thermoplastic matrices and integrated piezoceramic elements. Thereby, the focus is on the conception and analysis of the manufacturing process and experimental investigations to determine suitable material and processing parameters.