Consolidation of additive manufactured composites

The substitution of classic metal structures is possible with fiber-reinforced polymers due to their sustainable performance. However, a disadvantage of additive manufactured composites is the high degree of porosity, which leads to an unaccepted structural performance. With a post-consolidation process (additive fusion) following the printing process it is possible to improve the part's mechanical performance and therefore use fiber-reinforced polymers for load-bearing applications.

Numerical simulation of the consolidation process allows the manufacturing of these complex parts without cost-expensive prototyping iterations providing the evaluation of process-induced deformations, final engineering constants and porosity.

Speaker: Dr. Igor Zhilyaev, Institute of Polymer Engineering