Continuous ultrasonic welding of thermoplastic composites: Enhancing the weld uniformity by changing the energy director

Bram Jongbloed*, Julie Teuwen, Genevieve Palardy, Irene Fernandez Villegas, Rinze Benedictus

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)
127 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Continuous ultrasonic welding is a high-speed joining method for thermoplastic composites. Currently, a thin film energy director is used to focus the heat generation at the interface. However, areas of intact energy director remain in the welded seam, which significantly lowers the weld strength, and result in a non-uniformly welded seam. To improve the weld uniformity of continuous ultrasonically welded joints, we changed to a more compliant energy director. A woven polymer mesh energy director was found to give a significant improvement in weld quality. The mesh was flattened in between the composite adherends during the welding process. This flattening promoted a good contact between the energy director and the adherends, fully wetting the adherend surfaces, resulting in a more uniformly welded seam without areas of intact energy director.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2023–2035
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Composite Materials
Volume54
Issue number15
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2020

Keywords

  • continuous welded seam
  • Fusion bonding
  • high frequency welding
  • joining
  • polymer mesh

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