Abstract
Poly (lactic) acid (PLA) composites have made their way into various applications that may require thermoforming to produce 3D shapes. Wrinkles are common in many forming processes and identification of the forming parameters to prevent them in the useful part of the mechanical component is a key consideration. Better prediction of such defects helps to significantly reduce the time required for a tooling design process. The purpose of the experiment discussed here is to investigate the effects of different test parameters on the occurrence of deformations during sheet forming of double curvature shapes with bamboo fabric reinforced-PLA composites. The results demonstrated that the domes formed using hot tooling conditions were better in quality than those formed using cold tooling conditions. Wrinkles were more profound in the warp direction of the composite domes compared to the weft direction. Grid Strain Analysis (GSA) identifies the regions of severe deformation and provides useful information regarding the optimisation of processing parameters.
Highlights
The use of Poly acid (PLA) as a packaging material is limited due to several drawbacks such as low impact strength and brittleness [1,2]
Bamboo fabric has been used as reinforcing material in Poly (lactic) acid (PLA) composites
Thermoforming technologies are currently being established for woven fabric-reinforced thermoplastic materials because these materials exhibit high impact strength, formability, shorter fabrication time and ease of handling [4]
Summary
The use of Poly (lactic) acid (PLA) as a packaging material is limited due to several drawbacks such as low impact strength and brittleness [1,2]. Bamboo fabric has been used as reinforcing material in PLA composites. The formability of bamboo fabric-PLA composites has to be understood, since thermoforming is one of the major processes used to convert flat composite sheets into the packaging products [3]. Thermoforming technologies are currently being established for woven fabric-reinforced thermoplastic materials because these materials exhibit high impact strength, formability, shorter fabrication time and ease of handling [4]. The in-plane shearing properties for woven fabric-reinforced thermoplastic composites during processing must be carefully analysed to improve thermoforming production. When forming continuous fibre-reinforced materials, instabilities such as wrinkling and buckling may occur. Die conformity of continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastics can only be achieved through flow processes such as transverse flow, inter- and intra-ply slip and inter-ply rotation. The inter-ply rotation causes local changes in fibre orientation between adjacent plies and
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