Compression properties of novel thermoplastic carbon fibre and poly-ethylene terephthalate fibre composite lattice structures

Highlights: • An efficient manufacturing route to produce a thermoplastic lattice is presented. • The influence of core geometry on the mechanical properties have been investigated. • Thermoplastic carbon fibre structures show competitive mechanical performance. • Thermoplastic single polymer structures show better performance than foams. • Single polymer lattice cores have good recyclability and energy absorption. - Abstract: A novel manufacturing route to efficiently produce fibre composite lattice structures has been developed. By using thermoplastic composite materials, flat sheets have been continuously folded, cut into a lattice shape and joined into a sandwich structure. Carbon fibre reinforced poly-ethylene terephthalate (CPET) and poly-ethylene terephthalate fibre reinforced poly-ethylene terephthalate (SrPET) materials have been used to explore two different core options; a carbon fibre option which gives high performance but low recyclability and a single polymer PET option which gives lower performance but full recyclability. Parametric numerical simulations have been used to investigate how the various manufacturing parameters affect the mechanical performance of the core. The carbon fibre composite cores have mechanical performance on-par or better than existing metallic and composite lattice cores presented in literature. Single polymer PET cores show better performance compared to high-end foam cores but have considerable lower performance than carbon fibre lattice cores