Abstract:
Currently, composite automotive body components still face the challenge of isolated analysis of manufacturing process and structural performance in the research and development process, developing the "forming-performance" coupling model for woven fabric reinforced thermoplastics (WFRTPs) shows great significances to promote the industrial application of WFRTPs in the field of new energy vehicles. In this study, using the carbon fiber reinforced polypropylene (CF/PP) prepregs as the raw materials, two kinds of thin-walled CF/PP tubes with different fiber angles were manufactured by hot molding process, and the quasi-static bias-extension tests for CF/PP prepregs and CF/PP laminates, and the three-point bending tests for CF/PP tubes were preformed, and experimental results show that the increase in fabric fiber angle caused by the forming process leads to the decrease in shear strength and the increase in failure strain of the CF/PP laminates, which further results in the reduction in peak force and the increase in failure displacement of CF/PP tubes. Then, the hypoelastic forming constitutive model for CF/PP prepreg, the progressive damage bending constitutive model for CF/PP laminate and the "forming-bending" coupling constitutive model for CF/PP tube were developed and validated. The numerical results indicate that the shear plastic strain of the non-orthogonal CF/PP tube manufactured with restraints of blank holding force is 69% higher than that of the orthogonal sample without blank holding force, and the increase in fiber angle results in the significant increase in shear plastic strain, which further significantly increases the bending failure displacement of the non-orthogonal CF/PP tube.