Review, manufacturing, and tooling processes for continuous reinforced high-performance thermoplastic composites and related thermal analyses

This review firstly investigates thermoplastic materials and their composites with a particular focus on manufacturing processes of stamp forming, automated fiber placement (AFP) and bonding techniques. These processes are widely used in advanced manufacturing for different industries such as aerospace and automotive. The main focus of this article is tools used in stamp forming, AFP, and resistance welding. Their uses and design stages are defined. Of interest, thermal analysis is important in the tooling design phase since processes for thermoplastic composite production involve high temperatures that significantly impact tool performance, cycle times, and product quality. In this literature review, a summary of several research studies, which investigated thermal analysis of tools used in different processes, is presented. Significantly, processes are mainly not optimized for thermoplastic manufacturing. The literature review reveals a major gap in existing research especially in the thermal analysis of tooling for AFP and stamp forming. This lack of thermal studies might give a critical opportunity for further investigation.