Innovative forming of composite laminates

目前，由于更轻、更省油和更具成本效益的飞机的前景，纤维增强聚合物复合材料在航空航天行业的使用大幅增加，例如波音787、空中客车A350 XWB、庞巴迪C系列和LearJet85。当今工业的主要发展方向之一是通过自动化来提高生产速度。最令人感兴趣的是能够使用自动铺带机快速铺设由碳纤维增强聚合物薄层制成的扁平复合材料层压板，并将整个层压板成形成所需的形状，类似于板材成形。然而，目前对如何将单向增强的高性能多轴复合材料层合板成形为复杂形状的能力和认识有限。

There is currently a large increase in the use of fibre reinforced polymer composite materials in the aerospace industry because of the promise of lighter, more fuel-efficient and more cost effective airplanes, e.g. Boeing 787, Airbus A350 XWB, Bombardier C-series and Learjet 85. One of the major thrusts in industry today is to increase the speed of manufacture through automation. Of great interest is the ability to rapidly lay up flat composite laminates, made of thin layers of carbon fibre reinforced polymers, with an automated tape lay-up machine and form the whole laminate into the desired shape, similar to sheet metal forming. However, there is currently limited ability and understanding of how to form high performance multi-axial composite laminates with unidirectional reinforcement into complex shapes.