Page 32 - Research Report 2021 - Institut für Leichtbau und Kunststofftechnik

Insert

Simulation-assisted development of material-, load-
and process-specific inserts for thermoplastic composites

The application of metallic load introduction elements as a reliable and ef- Period
ficient joining technique for composites is widely accepted in most areas of 01.07.2019 – 31.03.2022
lightweight design. To date, such inserts either have to be embedded with high
effort during component manufacturing or need an additional process step Project management
for integration. By means of a novel automated process inserts now can be Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Maik Gude
integrated into thermoplastic composite during component manufacturing
using warm forming technology. Contact
Juliane Troschitz
Throughout this process, the reinforcing fibres are reoriented by a tapered Dr.-Ing. Robert Kupfer
pin, resulting in a complex material structure with locally varying fibre orienta-
tions and fibre volume content. In the design process of such joints, the ma- Funding
terial structure in the load introduction zone has to be considered to enable Funded by
a reliable description of the load-bearing behaviour. Hence, within this pro-
ject an experimentally-assisted numerical characterisation method for warm
formed joining zones is developed. For this purpose, the local fibre orienta- German Research Foundation
tions and fibre volume contents in the load introduction zone are determined German Research Foundation (DFG)
using computed tomography. Subsequently, the local mechanical properties
of the material can be calculated and transferred into a finite element model. Project number: 408132410
This provides the possibility for realistic depiction of the deformation and
damage behavior of the load introduction zone.

Thermoplastic composite with embedded insert.

Analysis of local fibre orientations for transfer to simulation models.

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