Until recently the processing of thermoplastic tapes has been limited to tape laying with low process speed and high investment, or tape winding which is restricted to specific geometries and also demands high investment. A&P has developed a tape braiding process enabling the production of sleevings, fabrics and preforms using various widths of slit tape and a wide range of polymers, including PEEK, PAEK, PEKK, PPS. The thermoplastic tapes can be braided into large diameter sleevings or produced as slit tape fabrics up to 65” wide.
These TP reinforcements are highly drapable and can be produced continuously incorporating off axis fibers for multiaxial reinforcements. The various braided product forms that can be produced using TP tapes include, but are not limited to:
- Continuous +/-45° fabric
- Multiaxial fabrics – 0°, +/-45° in a single layer, or other orientations such as 0°, +/-30° or 0°, +/-60°
- Braided sleevings or tubes made from tapes
- Multi-layered preforms
- Hybrid fabrics* – hybrid of triaxial and biaxial architectures in varying regions
- Hybrid preforms – layered preforms composed of off-axis layers heat-fused to unidirectional layers, or selectively located unidirectional regions.
*Continuous multiaxial fabrics with hybrid architectures could be secondarily formed to create various shapes, such as spars, stringers, etc.