MAYA - Manufacturing of the lining panel using hybrid technologies; Additive manufacturing, injection moulding and thermoforming

MAYA aims at developing innovative manufacturing routes integrating standard thermoplastic processes (such as injection moulding) and additive manufacturing to produce fuselage composite lining panels. These panels basically consist on sandwich structures with sheets reinforced with fibre-glass hold to the aircraft frame by a set of brackets. The high productivity rate of thermoplastic injection moulding associated to the design freedom of 3D printing will lead to an enhancement of the manufacturing process of the panel-bracket assembly resulting in lighter and less expensive panels with improved overall performance. The work carried out by the research group AMADE focuses on the experimental analysis for interface characterisation, material selection and validation of designs. The first stage of the experimental campaign includes the initial characterisation of the interface bonding of dissimilar materials with different thicknesses obtained by direct 3D printing on the composite skin or by using adhesives under mode I, static and fatigue, and mode II, static, to obtain the best material candidates and design properties. The second part of the work is based on the experimental analysis of the union between the composite skin and small-scale brackets under pull-out and shear-out conditions. Lastly, the final designs of the brackets, both for injection moulding and additive manufacturing, and the corresponding interface bonding with the sandwich panels are validated in large-scale tests under static and fatigue conditions simulating the in-use forces applied to the panels. In this work, the characterisation of the interface bonding of dissimilar materials is presented