Abstract
Metallization is a common strategy employed to enhance the electrical and thermal conductivity of polymer matrix composite materials. Nevertheless, metallic deposition on polymer-based materials is challenging due to the inherent limitations related to high temperature exposure of the substrate. In this article, a new technique for the manufacturing of composite laminates and the subsequent metallization by cold spraying of metallic powder is presented. The composite manufacturing route is based on the production of thermoplastic-thermoset hybrid substrates and consisted of two main stages: in the first stage the partial impregnation of a reinforcement textile by a thermoplastic film was promoted by hot pressing compaction. Afterwards, the prepared lamina was vacuum bagged with other reinforcing layers and impregnated by the thermoset catalyzed resin by a vacuum infusion process. Finally, the thermoset and thermoplastic layers were co-cured to increase the adhesion of the substrate with the thermoplastic film. The metallization of composite laminate was obtained through the cold spraying technique, depositing powders on the thermoplastic surface layer. The effect of processing parameters on the coating deposition, quality and microstructure was reported and discussed.
Highlights
Lightweight materials are currently widely adopted to optimize structures, transport systems and civil building [1,2]
The investigation involved two steps corresponding to the composite manufacturing and coating formation. - Manufacturing of the hybrid laminates As indicated in the Fig. 1, the hybrid composite manufacturing itself consisted of two main stages to form the thermoset infused fiber reinforcement stacks with the thermoplastic (PP) interlayer in order to assist in the further cold spraying procedure
The laminate containing the first monolayer of PP infiltrated glass fiber reinforcement was placed along with the additional fiber reinforcement layers to form a composite under the resin infusion process
Summary
Lightweight materials are currently widely adopted to optimize structures, transport systems and civil building [1,2] Due to this reason, many scientific efforts have been devoted to the manufacturing and the optimization of fiber reinforced composites [3,4,5,6,7]. The current research trend in this respect is to replace the metallic materials with lightweight, corrosion resistant alternatives such as polymer based composites [8,9,10]. Such incorporation can pose challenges in case of lightning strike issues due to the low poor electrical conductance of polymer and polymer based PMCs [11].
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