APPLICATION OF TAGUCHI METHOD FOR PROCESS ENHANCEMENT OF ONLINE CONSOLIDATION TECHNIQUE

During laser assisted processing of thermoplastic composites, the indi vidual effects of laser power, tape speed and consolidation pressure o n the interply bond strength cannot be easily separated unless a large number of experiments is carried out. Because the properties of an en d product depend upon the selection of processing conditions, it is es sential that the conditions under which a well consolidated part is ob tained should be defined. To investigate the effects of individual pro cess parameters from a minimum number of tests, the Taguchi method is applied. For this investigation, PEEK/carbon fibre (APC-2) thermoplast ic composite rings were manufactured by a thermoplastic tape winding p rocess at selected conditions, and the influence of dominant process p arameters on interply bond strength was evaluated. The influence of th ree dominant factors, namely laser power, consolidation pressure and t ape speed. on bond strength were investigated. The experimental design involved using L(9) orthogonal arrays, and the percentage contributio n of each factor to the quality of bonding was estimated by the ANOVA technique.