Closing the Quality Gap of thermoplastic AFP: Insights from the Production of the Multifunctional Fuselage Demonstrators Upper Shell

The CleanSky II Multifunctional Fuselage Demonstrator (MFFD) is the world’s largest known aviation structure made from thermoplastic composites. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Structures and Design with its Center for Lightweight Production Technology (ZLP) in Augsburg manufactured the 8-meter-long upper shell of the Multifunctional Fuselage Demonstrator. Together with the partners Premium AEROTEC (PAG), Aernnova (ANN) and AIRBUS, the consortium delivered the full-scale upper shell demonstrator. The lay-up of the skin for the 8m demonstrator was done by means of thermoplastic Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) in order to demonstrate a lean and fast production for the fuselage. Several challenges occurred during production resulting in a suboptimal quality of the placed skin. This paper gives an insight into the root causes of the encountered problems during the AFP process and presents approaches to improve the thermoplastic AFP process to overcome the quality gap observed in the skin.