Insights on the use of PVB nanocomposites as energy directors in ultrasonic welding of epoxy composites

Insights on the use of PVB nanocomposites as energy directors in ultrasonic welding of epoxy composites

CILENTO Fabrizia, PALMIERI Barbara, SORRENTINO Luigi, GIORDANO Michele, MARTONE Alfonso

Abstract. The selection of an adequate coupling film for welding thermoset composites (TSC) is primary for improving the degree of automation in the composite industry. Ultrasonic welding (UW) is a well-established technique for joining composites and has recently been utilized in the aerospace and automotive industries. To achieve an efficient joining, the use of a polymer-based material placed at the welding interface called an energy director (ED) is required. The choice of the coupling layer material is linked to several requirements, such as processing temperature, high adhesion to the TSC adherend and mechanical strength of the resulting welded joints. Most importantly, the viscoelastic dissipation of the ED influences the heating mechanism and the joint behaviour since the hysteresis loops generated during welding are dissipated into viscoelastic heat. In this work, the authors investigated the possibility of using Poly-vinyl-butyral (PVB) reinforced with graphite nanoplatelets (GNPs) as a coupling layer in UW of TSC adherents, showing that an improvement of lap shear strength (LSS) of 80% with respect to neat PVB.

Keywords
Nanocomposites, Damping, Ultrasonic Welding, Graphite Nanoplatelets

Published online 4/19/2023, 10 pages
Copyright © 2023 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: CILENTO Fabrizia, PALMIERI Barbara, SORRENTINO Luigi, GIORDANO Michele, MARTONE Alfonso, Insights on the use of PVB nanocomposites as energy directors in ultrasonic welding of epoxy composites, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 28, pp 1851-1860, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644902479-200

The article was published as article 200 of the book Material Forming

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

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