Manufacturing hybrid carbon fiber laminates with 3D printed interlayers

Hybrid laminates were manufactured with a honeycomb interlayer of PETG between composite plies. The interlayer was obtained by 3D printing either on the machine bed (Hybrid-B) and on the prepreg surface (Hybrid-S). Compression molding was performed for consolidation. Hybrid-B exhibited an accumulation of PETG at the warp/weft intersection of the composite fabric while a more uniform distribution was shown by Hybrid-S. The bending strengths of Hybrid-B and Hybrid-S were 726 MPa and 718 MPa, respectively. Hybridization led to improvements in the damping behavior as the loss factor at room temperature increased of 55.7 % and 58.8 % for Hybrid-B and Hybrid-S, respectively.