Development of Tailored Hybrid Laminates: Manufacturing of Basalt Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastic Orthoses with Aluminum Thin Sheets

Abstract

Nowadays, orthoses are made from fibre reinforced thermoset based composites with a high manual labor input. These thermoset based orthoses are no longer formable, which brings forth a significant disadvantage. Hence, hybrid laminates consisting of fibre reinforced thermoplastic films and thin metal sheets can replace successive thermoset based systems due to their advantages of higher formability and the suitability for mass production. In the present work, various surface treatment methods like pickling or mechanical blasting have been used on thin metal sheets to increase the adhesive and shear strength of the produced thermoplastic based hybrid laminates. The modified metal sheets were further combined with basalt fibre reinforced interlayers to manufacture overlap samples, which were used to determine the tensile shear strength. In addition, the roughness of the modified metal sheets has also been investigated. Moreover, the consolidation parameters such as pressure, holding time and temperature have been varied for the production of hybrid laminates using hot-pressing process and then the microstructural images have been recorded. Finally, the mechanical properties of the produced hybrid laminates have been tested by means of a three-point bending test and the interlaminar shear strength has been analyzed.