Fibre Metal Laminates - some aspects of manufacturing process, structure and selected properties
Jarosław Bieniaś
Quarterly No. 1, 2011 pages 34-38
DOI:
keywords: Fibre Metal Laminates, hybrid titanium composite, glass fibres, microstructure, mechanical proper-ties
abstract Fibre Metal Laminates (FML) are hybrid materials, consisting of alternating layers of thin metal sheets and composite layers. FML possess superior properties of both metals and fibrous composite materials. Fibre Metal Laminates are characterized by excellent damage tolerance: fatigue and impact and characteristics, low density, corrosion and fire resistance. Glare as a type of FML are composites consisting of thin aluminium layers and glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites. The most common method used to produce FML including Glare is autoclave processing (under relatively high pressure, vacuum, elevated temperature). The first large scale application of Glare laminates is the fuselage and leading edges of the vertical and horizontal tail planes of the Air-bus A-380 aircraft. Current and future research on FML is focused on generating new laminates, for example based on the combination of titanium and magnesium and carbon or glass polymer composites. In this paper, the preliminary studies concerning the manufacturing method and the properties of new generation hybrid composite materials - titanium/glass fibre reinforced laminates (Ti-G) are described. The titanium/glass composites were characterized from the standpoint of their quality (ultrasonic technique- phased array C-scan method), microstructure and selected mechanical properties (tensile strength). The hybrid Ti-G laminates were prepared by stacking alternating layers of commercially pure titanium (grade 2) and R-glass fiber/epoxy prepregs. The lay-up scheme of the Ti-G composites were 2/1 (two layers of titanium sheet and one layer of glass/epoxy prepreg as a [0,90] sequence) and 3/2. It was found that (1) manufacturing Fibre Metal Laminates including Ti-G composites using the autoclave technique is advantageous for the reason of obtaining higher quality and repeatability of the composite structures, (2) the titanium/glass fiber reinforced laminates demonstrated good bonding between the metal and composite layers and homogeneous structure without discontinuities, (3) manufactured Ti-G composites are characterized by high mechanical properties - tensile strength due to the excellent properties of both components, titanium and glass-fibre composite materials, (4) titanium/glass fiber reinforced laminates are new generation hybrid materials, which can be potentially used for composite structures in aerospace.