Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470

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Optimization of the diaphragm forming process with regard to

product quality and cost
S.G. Pantelakis*, E.A. Baxevani
Laboratory of Technology & Strength of Materials, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics, University of Patras,
Panepistimioupolois Rion, 26500 Patras, Greece
Received 25 October 2000; revised 31 October 2001; accepted 15 November 2001

Abstract
The diaphragm forming process used for the cost ef®cient production of thermoplastic composite components has been experimentally
investigated. The process has been optimized with regard to product quality and cost. For the process optimization a new generic concept is
introduced. The proposed concept involves quality and cost sensitivity analyses by considering the process parameters as variables. For
deriving relations between process parameter variation and component quality features, as well as between process parameter variation and
component costs, an extensive experimental parametric study was made. For the investigation, the thermoplastic composite APC-2/AS4 was
used. The manufactured parts were different, aircraft structure like, simple shapes. Cost estimation relationships were established by using
the activity based cost concept. Using the derived empirical relations for the quality and cost sensitivity analyses, the developed process
optimization concept could be implemented. The investigation presented the need for the evolution of the diaphragm forming technique into
a new `cold' diaphragm forming technique. To evaluate the `new' technique, a testing facility on experimental (laboratory) scale was
devised. Simple shape parts from the thermoplastic Borealis PP/E-glass were manufactured with satisfactory quality. The cost for producing
components using the cold diaphragm forming technique was estimated and it was found to be signi®cantly lower compared to the cost for
producing the same components using the autoclave or conventional diaphragm forming techniques. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: E. Forming; E. Prepreg; E. Thermoplastic resin; Cost ef®ciency

1. Introduction result of high material costs and expensive manufacturing

During the last two decades advanced thermoplastic
composites with excellent material properties such as
improved impact resistance and damage tolerance, higher
service temperature, reparability by re-melting and good
manufacturability characteristics have been developed.
Since the early 80s, a wide spread use of these materials
in the aircraft industry has been anticipated. However, the
expected breakthrough has not been realized. Despite the
intensive efforts, which have been undertaken, application
of thermoplastic composites in aircraft structures has been
rare, e.g. [1±5]. This is attributed to the higher ®nal prices of
thermoplastic composite parts as compared to the ®nal
prices of the same parts produced from other, more `con-
ventional', materials such as aluminium products or thermo-
setting composites. These high component costs are the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 130-61-991027; fax: 130-61-997190.
E-mail address: pantelak@mech.upatras.gr (S.G. Pantelakis).
1359-835X/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1359-835 X(01)00 147-6
techniques [6±9].
The key factor for introducing new materials and
processes in series production is their cost ef®ciency. It
has been shown in Ref. [8] that cost ef®ciency decreases
when replacing conventional materials by thermoplastic
composites. This statement is not valid only for components
that can be manufactured using press techniques [8,9] or
processes that rely on pultrusion, e.g. the process in Ref.
[10]. Efforts to increase cost ef®ciency of autoclaves or to
improve techniques such as the resin transfer molding are
promising but did not lead yet to the desired result.
Limitations to increase cost ef®ciency are mainly set by
the high process temperatures required for manufacturing
parts from high performance thermoplastic composites such
as carbon ®ber reinforced PEEK. High process temperatures
lead to long process cycles. For example, for processing the
aircraft material APC-2/AS4 in the autoclave a cycle of
more than 3 h is needed [5,11]. For the same material the
use of the time effective conventional diaphragm forming
technique still requires process cycles of more than 1 h, see
460 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Fig. 1. Schematic presentation of the single diaphragm forming technique.
e.g. Ref. [5]. Cheaper thermoplastic composites, which also
have a lower melting point, such as glass ®ber reinforced
polypropylene (PP) and polyamide (PA) have been antici-
pated as promising alternatives to increase the use of
thermoplastic composites in the transportation sector [12].
This seems to be the case for the automotive industry [13]
but not for aircraft components where composites of higher
performance are required. As a consequence of the increas-
ing use of thermoplastic composites in the automotive
industry, techniques such as matched die forming, hydro-
forming and diaphragm forming have attracted considerable
attention, e.g. [14±24], although their applicability is
limited to small parts of relative simple geometry.
The study in Ref. [6] has demonstrated that improving
the cost ef®ciency of thermoplastic components for both
aerospace and automotive sector, can be made manageable
when reducing the component manufacturing costs; depend-
ing on the case, manufacturing costs may contribute up to
80% of the total cost of the component.
In this work results of an investigation for producing
thermoplastic composite components cost ef®ciently are
presented. The diaphragm forming technique is optimized
to obtain minimum cost for a speci®ed quality. For the
optimization a new generic concept is introduced. Optimi-
zation has been based on an extensive experimental para-
metric study on the diaphragm forming technique [14], as it
was modi®ed in the studies in Refs. [5,16,17,19,20]. Appli-
cation of this concept has driven the development of a new
cold diaphragm forming technique for producing thermo-
plastic composite components cost ef®ciently. For realizing
the new technique an experimental facility was devised and
examples of simple shapes were produced. Good results and
essential cost reduction were achieved.
2. Experimental investigation
2.1. The diaphragm forming technique
The technique was ®rst introduced in Ref. [14]. To
increase manufacturability and to improve the component
quality, several modi®cations were made, e.g. in Refs.
[5,16,19,22]. The process is illustrated schematically in
Fig. 1 and refers to the modi®cation in Refs. [5,19]. In the
studies in Refs. [5,17,19] the technique is referred to as
superplastic forming and corresponds to a single diaphragm
forming technique. For implementing this technique,
thermoplastic prepregs or organic plates are ®xed over a
female inner mold, which is placed in the heating chamber.
The heating chamber consists of the upper mold, which
involves also the heating elements, and of the lower mold,
which provides the place for the changeable female inner
mold. A polymeric backing material is properly ®xed over
the upper surface of the prepregs such that the chamber is
tightly separated into two parts. Heat is applied through the
heating elements. After the composite material has been
heated to the processing temperature, pressure is applied
to the upper surface of the backing material using inert
gas while vacuum is provided to the lower female part of
the mold. The lower female part of the mold serves also as
the lower backing material. Once the component is formed
and consolidated the temperature is decreased to the
desirable rate to obtain a solid component, which can be
removed from the mold.
2.2. Materials
The main part of the investigation has been carried
out for the thermoplastic matrix composite carbon ®ber
reinforced PEEK. Thermoplastic composite aircraft
components have been produced up to-date using almost
explicitly this material [3±5], which also belongs to the
candidates for use in the new supersonic civil transport
aircraft. However, the material is very expensive and
has a melting temperature of 350 8C, which yields to
long and expensive component process cycles. For the
present work the material was delivered in the form of
prepregs with 60 vol%. carbon ®bers and a nominal
thickness of 0.125 mm as well as in the form of
woven roving with nominal thickness of 0.5 mm. For
 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Table 1
Investigated process parameters for the conventional diaphragm forming
process and parameter variation range for the material APC-2/AS4
Process parameters Variation range for APC-2/AS4
Temperature 350±400 8C
Heating rate 3±7 8C/min
Forming and consolidation time 3±30 min
Pressure 5±20 bar
Pressure rate 1 bar/min to 5 bar/s
Backing material Al 99, Kapton-H, UPILEX-S,
UPILEX-R
applying the cold diaphragm forming, which is
described in Section 3.4, PP/E-glass material was also
used. The material was delivered in form of 65 vol%
glass ®ber reinforced PP prepregs with nominal thick-
ness of 0.6 mm. The material has obviously much lower
performance compared to C/PEEK but it is cheap, has a low
processing temperature of the order of 180±220 8C and has
satisfactory mechanical properties. Thus, it is one of the
most promising candidates for wide spread use in the auto-
motive industry [12,13].
2.3. Production of samples
For the parametric study C/PEEK prepregs were used.
With the delivered prepregs [145/90/245/0]s as well as 8
and 16 plies unidirectional material con®gurations were
made. The selected shapes for the samples refer to a
stringer, an elliptical cover and an ashtray like shape. The
two former shapes are typical for aircraft application while
the latter is very demanding due to its reversed curvatures
over short distance. The depth to draw ratios was 64, 18 and
20% for stringer, elliptical cover and ashtray, respectively.
For each of these shapes, several series of trials were
performed, by varying the diaphragm forming process para-
meters on a trial and error basis. In total 60 trials were made.
The process parameters investigated were the processing
temperature, the heating time, the maximum pressure, the
Fig. 2. Experimentally derived matrix displacement: (a) concentric graphite circles before forming, (b) geometry of graphite contours after forming.
461
pressure rate and the backing material. Process parameters
and parameter variation range are shown in Table 1. The
aim of this experimentation was to derive `optimized'
process cycles and parameters, which allow the cost ef®-
cient production of samples providing certain quality
features.
The quality features, which have been set for the
produced samples, were the consolidation quality, the
component thickness deviations (dimensional stability)
and the absence of defects such as ®ber wash, wrinkling at
the surface layers, out of plane buckling, etc. The consoli-
dation quality was evaluated by means of C-scan tests and
interlaminar shear (ILS) strength tests. The specimens for
the ILS strength tests were cut from the ¯at sides of the
samples. The uneven distribution of the thickness and the
®ber wash are the result of the matrix ¯ow. In order to derive
the characteristics of the matrix ¯ow during the forming
process, the investigation aimed to quantify the following:
(i) relative displacement between corresponding points on
top and bottom surfaces of the composite, (ii) displacement
of the matrix in directions transverse and parallel to the
®bers as well as for in between directions and (iii) relative
displacement of the middle layer of the composite with
respect to corresponding points of the free surfaces. The
experimentation for deriving the characteristics of the
matrix ¯ow was carried out by producing ashtray like
samples using C/PEEK prepreg [17]. It was found that
graphite adheres to the matrix and does not deteriorate
during forming. To measure the relative displacements at
the surfaces of the sample, concentric graphite circles
centered at the center of the mold were drown on both
free surfaces of the composite specimen before forming,
as it is shown for an ashtray specimen in Fig. 2(a). The
same principle for measuring matrix displacement was
also applied in Ref. [2]. To measure the relative displace-
ment of the middle layer of the composite with respect to
corresponding points of the free surfaces, metal specks were
implanted at the middle plane of the specimen at the same
radii as the circles of graphite at the surface. X-raying of the
specimen before and after forming in conjunction with the
462 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
derived matrix displacements at the free surfaces provides
the required data.
2.4. Results and discussion
The process parameters and their variation ranges are
shown in Table 1. By each trial only one parameter was
varied. Then the produced part was evaluated with regard
to the quality features set in Section 2.3. The quality of the
produced samples was characterized by visual inspection
for defects, measurement of the dimensional stability of
the samples, as well as, C-scan evaluation and ILSS tests
for the ¯at sides of the samples. To keep the experimental
effort realistic, existing theoretical and experimental knowl-
edge has been utilized to de®ne initial values and variation
range of the process parameters e.g. [18,25±27].
Characteristic produced samples are shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Characteristic APC-2/AS4 samples produced using diaphragm
forming technique: (a) stringer like shape, (b) ashtray like shape.
Fig. 4. Optimized process cycle for an APC-2/AS4 sample, using the
diaphragm forming technique.
The empirically derived optimized process cycle used
for producing samples of suf®cient quality is displayed
in Fig. 4. The parameters derived for the optimized process
cycle were: forming temperature Tf ˆ 380 8C; forming
pressure ˆ 10 bar, heating rate ˆ 7 8C/min, forming
time ˆ 2 s, forming rate is as high as possible, consolidation
time ˆ 5 min, average cooling rate ˆ 10 8C/min. The
diaphragm material was UPILEX-R. The achieved quality
was good. Visual inspection has shown a good surface ®nish
and absence of surface defects such as wrinkling. In certain
cases the visual examination reveals some ®ber buckling,
probably due to in-plane compressive forces developed
during forming. The variation of the process parameters
within the ranges indicated in Table 1 has resulted to the
following empirical quality sensitivity analysis.
The forming process temperature Tproc was shown to be
a more or less invariable parameter (Tf < 380 8C). The
process temperature cannot be changed without affecting
the component quality. It con®rms the empirical relation
Tproc < Tm 1 30 8C; proposed in Ref. [18], where Tm is
the melting temperature of the material.
Low-pressure values yield to insuf®cient consolidation.
In order to achieve suf®cient consolidation, a minimum
pressure value of 10 bar was required in the present inves-
tigation. Increase of the pressure over this value does not
improve the consolidation quality. The in¯uence of the
variation of the pressure values on the ILS strength is
shown in Table 2. The achieved ILS strength value of
85 MPa represents around 80% of the respective value
derived from a laminate produced in the autoclave.
Conventional superplastic forming facilities do not
allow wide range variation of the heating rate. High
heating rates are not possible to apply. Within the range
investigated the heating rate is not in¯uencing the com-
ponent quality. The selected heating rate of 7 8C/min
 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470 463

Table 2 the specimen thickness during forming could be obtained.

Dependency of the ILS strength to the consolidation pressure value
Pressure (bar) ILS strength t (MPa) at room
temperature
First failure
2 a
± ±
5 81.35
10 83.50
15 85.65
20 84.25
Composite material: APC-2/AS4
Forming temperature: 380 8C
Consolidation time: 5 min
Cooling rate: 10 8C/min
a
Insuf®cient consolidation.
represents the maximum heating rate possible with the
existing facility.
The experimentation has shown that the forming time
must be as short as possible. With increasing forming
time, the thickness stability decreases dramatically and the
matrix ¯ow becomes appreciable. The forming time is
determined by the pressure application rate parameter. To
keep forming time minimum, the pressure application rate
must be as high as possible. In Fig. 2(b) the matrix ¯ow at
the upper surface obtained during forming of an ashtray
shape is shown. The specimen was shaped at 380 8C with
a pressure application rate of 5 bar/s. As it can be seen
matrix ¯ows preferably perpendicular to the ®bers. The
concentric graphite cycles drown at the upper and lower
surface of the specimen before forming (Fig. 2(a)) show a
trend to be transformed to ellipses with major axes lying
perpendicular to the ®bers (Fig. 2(b)). With regard to the X-
ray evaluation of specimens including metal specks after
forming, a relatively even matrix ¯ow pro®le throughout
This is consistent with the calculations in Ref. [25]. When
the time available for matrix ¯ow is short, the shape
contains dimensional stability. Consequently, the pressure
application rate and the forming time are limited only by the
Final failure
technological capability of the manufacturing facility and
the deformation rates that may be applied to the diaphragm
81.35 material without cracking it during pressure application. In
84.10 the present work a value of 5 bar/s was achieved. It leads to
87.00 a forming time of less than 2 s. This value has reached the
85.00
capability limit of the existing facility. In Fig. 5 the achieved
dimensional stability for the ashtray, which was the most
demanding shape in this investigation, is shown.
The diaphragm material is required to provide suf®cient
plastic deformation ability at high strain rates. For the
high temperature thermoplastic matrix investigated, the
use of a polyimide (UPILEX-R) diaphragm has been proven
advantageous. Generally, the selection of the polymeric
diaphragm depends on the forming temperature of the
thermoplastic matrix.
The consolidation time has a certain `optimal' value,
which depends on the material and the thickness of the
sample. For the present investigation it is found to be
5 min. Lower consolidation times yield to insuf®cient
consolidation. Over this empirically derived limit the con-
solidation quality was practically unchanged with increas-
ing consolidation time.
It is known that the cooling rate is in¯uencing the degree
of crystallinity of the thermoplastic matrix and consequently
a series of mechanical properties such as toughness, impact
resistance, modulus of elasticity, etc. Yet, as it was shown in
Refs. [26,27], for the investigated material APC-2/AS4 the
change of the degree of crystallinity does not extend 5%, i.e.
from 30 to 25%, when the cooling rate increases in the range
between 10 and 600 8C/min. Thus, for the investigated
material, the component properties may be considered as

Fig. 5. Measured dimensional stability for an ashtray sample.

464 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470

Table 3
Qualitative impact of the variation of the manufacturing process parameters on the quality of the components

Increase of parameter Quality improvement Quality degradation Signi®cant in¯uence

Process temperature Consolidation quality Dimensional discrepancies Dimensional stability

Fiber wash Mechanical properties
Heating rate ± ±
Forming time ± Dimensional discrepancies Dimensional stability
Fiber wash Fiber wash
Consolidation time Consolidation quality ± Mechanical and physical
properties
Cooling rate Depends on the material Depends on the material Degree of crystallinity
Mechanical properties
Pressure value Consolidation quality Dimensional discrepancies Mechanical properties
Fiber wash
Pressure application rate Dimensional stability Out of plane buckling and Dimensional stability
wrinkling
No ®ber wash
Time of pressure application Consolidation quality ± Mechanical properties
Backing material stiffness Quality of surface ®nish Ability to decrease forming time Quality of surface ®nish

insensitive to the cooling rate. The cooling rate limitation is
set by the requirement to avoid distortion during cooling.
Therefore, the cooling rate has not been considered as a
variable in the present investigation. It was kept constant
to an average value of approximately 10 8C/min for all
performed tests.
The qualitative impact of the variation of the manu-
facturing process parameters on the quality of the produced
samples is summarized in Table 3.
The results of the above parametric study were
utilized to produce a rib of the horizontal stabilizer of
a small aircraft. For producing the rib C/PEEK in a [90,
2452, 90, 452, 0]s lamination was used. Rib lamination
and dimensions have resulted from a full Finite Element
(FE) analysis of the horizontal stabilizer and subsequent
design optimization to the total mass of the structure. For
Fig. 6. Characteristic APC-2/AS4 rib-like sample produced using
diaphragm forming technique.
the analysis the ANSYS-FE code was used. The produced
sample is shown in Fig. 6.
3. Process optimization concept with regard to
component quality and cost
3.1. Concept
The empirical quality sensitivity analysis presented above
led to components with suf®cient quality with regard to
speci®c quality objectives. Yet, the produced component
is not optimized from the viewpoint of component cost.
With the aim to manufacture products of a speci®ed quality
with minimum cost, a generic concept has been developed.
Following this concept, both manufacturing process ¯ow
and process parameters are considered to be variable.
They can be de®ned to obtain minimum cost for certain
quality objectives. Quality objectives may include mechan-
ical properties, dimensional tolerances, surface appearance,
etc.
To establish relations between process parameter varia-
tion and product quality, a quality sensitivity analysis has
to be ®rstly made. To this scope, quality limits have to be set
to satisfy the component performance objectives and
further component quality speci®cations. Models relating
the quality features to the process parameters are rare.
Thus, the in¯uence of each process parameter variation on
the component quality features can be derived by utilizing
historical data, available at the manufacturing facility, or
experimentally, when the investigation is performed at a
laboratory scale. These data provide the input to formulate
empirical expressions between process parameter variation
and quality characteristics. With regard to these relations the
process parameters may be categorized to variable, i.e. para-
meters which can be varied within certain ranges without
 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
affecting the quality limits, and invariable, i.e. parameters
which cannot be varied without affecting quality. Classi®-
cation of the process parameters to variable and invariable
depends on the manufacturing process and/or on the quality
objectives.
The quality functions are valid only for a certain manu-
facturing process, component and type of composite
material. However, for reducing experimental effort, the
required quality functions are not derived for a certain
component but it suf®ces to derive them for a family of
relative components, i.e. components that have comparable
dimensions and degree of complexity and are produced
using the same manufacturing process [6]. Thus, for a
family of relative components the variable process para-
meters and consequently the respective quality functions
do not depend directly on the component but they depend
on the material features, which are relevant for the certain
manufacturing process (e.g. forming process temperature,
applicable cooling rate, etc.). Based on the above considera-
tions, quality sensitivity analysis is made to obtain the
permissible variation ranges of the process parameter
values, which still satisfy speci®c quality characteristics.
Within the derived range of parameter values, the selec-
tion of optimized process parameters values with regard to
product quality and cost can be made manageable by
relating the variation of the forming process parameters to
the component manufacturing costs. In Ref. [6], a metho-
dology was developed to obtain the cost of the component
under consideration already during the early design phase
by rationalizing industrial experience into mathematical
expressions. To this scope, cost estimation relationships
(CERs) were established by using the activity based cost
concept. To formulate CERs cost drivers were ®rstly
de®ned. The implemented cost drivers are quantities such
as the man time, the machine time, etc. The CERs estab-
lished in Ref. [6] relate empirically the cost drivers for each
separate activity of the entire manufacturing process
directly to the component ®nal cost. It includes an indirect
relation between process parameters and component costs.
In the present work, the cost drivers are formulated as
functions of the process parameters. For example, the
cost driver `process time' is formulated as a function of
the process parameters forming temperature, heating
rate and cooling rate. This function is then related to
the component cost. It yields to direct relations between
process parameters and component costs. The obtained
relations are also applicable to families of relative
components like the CERs in Ref. [6]. After establish-
ing the relations of the process parameters to both qual-
ity characteristics and component cost, optimization of
the process parameters with regard to component quality
and cost can be made. As it is shown in Section 3.2 the
proposed process optimization may require technological
modi®cations of the manufacturing facility itself in order
to enable the implementation of the optimized process
parameters.
465
3.2. Optimization of the diaphragm forming technique
For the optimization of the diaphragm forming tech-
nique, the quality sensitivity analysis presented in
Section 2.4 has been utilized. Using these results,
empirical relations between process parameter variation
and quality features were derived. Accordingly, the process
parameters have been categorized to variable, i.e. to para-
meters that can be varied without affecting the quality limits
and invariable, i.e. parameters that affect the quality
features.
With regard to mentioned results, invariable is the para-
meter forming temperature …T ˆ 380 8C†: Variable within
certain limits are the parameters pressure (.10 bar), con-
solidation time (.5 min) and cooling rate (between 10 and
600 8C/min). Finally, free variable is the parameter of heat-
ing rate. Following the quality sensitivity analysis, cost
sensitivity analysis was also made by applying the activity
based cost concept. With regard to this methodology, the
diaphragm forming process was divided to the sub-
processes (activities) shown in Fig. 7. Notice that the auto-
clave process, which due to the high quality of the produced
components might be interpreted as a reference process for
all techniques that include heating and pressurizing the
material in an oven, can be divided to same activities of
Fig. 7. The analysis has shown that, with the exception of
sub-process A, the dominant cost driving factor for all
activities of Fig. 7 is the duration of the relevant activity.
It was also found that the contribution of the sub-processes
B±E to the component cost increases linearly with time. As
an example of the performed cost sensitivity analysis, the
calculated cost contribution of the sub-processes A±E to
the total cost of a 80 £ 80 £ 2 mm 3 APC-2/AS4 plate manu-
factured using the diaphragm forming technique and the
Fig. 7. Sub-processes of the diaphragm forming process for the cost
sensitivity analysis.
466 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Fig. 8. Contribution of the sub-processes A±E to the total cost of an
80 £ 80 £ 2 mm 3 APC-2/AS4 plate.
autoclave, are displayed in Fig. 8. The ®gure includes also
the cold diaphragm forming, which will be discussed in
Section 3.3. It can be seen that the cost of the plate manu-
factured using a diaphragm forming facility does not exceed
55% of the cost of the same plate manufactured in the auto-
clave. This appreciable cost difference results from the
following features of the two processes under consideration.
The process time in the autoclave is about 3±4 times the
process time for diaphragm forming. In addition, in the
latter process the activities C and E of Fig. 7, do not
exist and the activity D is much shorter. Activities C
and E are making the autoclave process much more
labor intensive. The labor time in the autoclave process
is in the order of 30±40% of the total process time
compared to similar values for the diaphragm forming
process, which is, however, a 3±4 times shorter process. It
is also remarkable that the price for a small autoclave is
about 10 times the price for the diaphragm forming facility
of Fig. 1. The calculations in Fig. 8 do not account for this
fact.
With the aim to minimize the cost of the diaphragm form-
ing process, one should notice that activities A and B are
related to the material and its preparation to the proper
dimensions for the component and do not depend on the
manufacturing process. Thus, the activity, which is related
to the process itself and contributes signi®cantly to the
total component cost, is activity D. As Fig. 9 shows, the
diaphragm forming process duration and, hence, the compo-
nent cost will be minimized when the heating and cooling
time are minimized. On the other hand, the performed qual-
ity sensitivity analysis has shown that the process para-
meters heating rate and, depending on the thermoplastic
matrix, cooling rate do not affect the component quality
and can be considered as variable. Thus, for making the
Fig. 9. Process cycle of an 80 £ 80 £ 2 mm 3 APC-2/AS4 plate using auto-
clave and diaphragm forming technique.
production of components cost ef®cient, heating and cooling
time have to be reduced as much as possible. In classical
autoclaves and diaphragm forming facilities, the increase of
heating and cooling rate is hindered by certain technological
limits, which refer to the heating principle, i.e. forced
convection by heating in an oven with circulation of air or
inert gas.
3.3. Study of the heating system
An extensive study of the heating problem of thermo-
plastic matrices has been made in Ref. [29]. In the present
work, for developing an ef®cient heating system, a simpli-
®ed engineering approximation of heating a thermoplastic
composite specimen by forced convection and infrared
radiation, has been considered to be suf®cient. A ¯at circular
APC-2/AS4 plate of a certain thickness was taken. The
lower part and the circumference of the specimen were
considered insulated, i.e. adiabatic. The upper part of the
plate acts as heat receiver. For the analysis a limit for
temperature differences between upper and lower surface
of the plate of 5 8C was set. This value is realistic for prac-
tical application in order to avoid strong matrix ¯ow velo-
city gradients during forming. For the heating study, the
composite material properties were taken constant. They
were determined as described in Ref. [28]. Compared in
Fig. 10 is the time required to heat the APC-2/AS4 specimen
to the forming temperature of 380 8C by convection against
the time required when using infrared radiation. For the
calculations, it has been assumed that when heating by
convection, the air of the oven has already reached the
forming temperature of the composite. The above assump-
tion neglects the heating time of the air, which depending on
the oven dimensions, can be in the order of hours. The time
 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Fig. 10. Comparison of heating time of APC-2/AS4 plates of different
thickness using convection and radiation.
calculation when heating by infrared was made for radiation
exchange between diffuse and gray surfaces in an enclosure.
The radiation source power was assumed to be 4.5 kW/m 2.
When the upper surface of the composite material has
reached the forming temperature, heating time of the
material lying underneath was calculated as a transient
heat-conduction problem. The results in Fig. 10 demonstrate
the clear time advantage when using infrared radiation. For
an APC-2/AS4 composite plate 2 mm thick, the heating
Fig. 11. Experimental `cold' diaphragm forming facility.
467
time using the infrared radiation is 2 min whilst the heating
time by forced convection is 20 min, in addition to the
essential time (of the order of 2 h), which is required to
heat the air of the oven. The time advantage increases
when the thickness of the specimen increases. Notice that
a major technological obstacle for the commercialization of
`cold' autoclaves using infrared radiation has been the need
to achieve even absorbed radiation all over the surface of the
composite material after it has been placed in the mold. In
the diaphragm forming process this request is not dif®cult to
manage.
3.4. The `cold' diaphragm forming facility
An experimental cold diaphragm forming laboratory
facility involving an infrared radiation heating system has
been conceived and manufactured. Preliminary results were
presented in Ref. [30]. The layout of this facility is identical
to the layout of the classical diaphragm forming facility
illustrated in Fig. 1. The developed facility is shown in
Fig. 11; it includes the forming mold with the changeable
inner mold, the heating unit, the pressure application system
and the temperature measurement unit. Mold and heating
systems are shown in Fig. 12. As it can be seen, heating
occurs in the tool using infrared lamps, which are placed on
a moving frame positioned at the upper part of the tool.
After heating of the material to the desired temperature,
the frame is drawn out of the unit in order to protect the
lamp from pressure application. The tool remains gastight.
This tool was designed in order to experimentally produce
468 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Fig. 12. Mold and heating system of the cold diaphragm forming facility.
small size components. Structural analysis of the tool was
made using the FE code ANSYS. Following, the main tech-
nical features of the tool are summarized. The inner tool
diameter is 170 mm and the inner mold of the tool is
changeable. The used radiation lamps are capable of
producing temperature up to 400 8C. Measurements of the
upper material surface temperature distribution have
shown small temperature deviations, which are insigni®cant
for the forming process. The maximum allowable pressure
for the facility is 20 bar. Using a special valve, application
of the required forming pressure occurs almost instanta-
Fig. 13. Sample produced using the `cold' diaphragm forming facility.
Table 4
Optimized process parameters for a PP/E-glass component using the `cold'
diaphragm forming technique
Composite material: PP/E-glass
Forming temperature 200 8C
Pressure 12 bar
Pressure rate Instantaneously
Forming time 2s
Consolidation time 5 min
neously (less than 2 s). The developed technique involves
a single diaphragm; a thin polyimide foil (UPILEX-R) has
been selected.
3.5. Experiments, results and discussion
In order to check the new facility a series of experi-
ments using both APC-2/AS4 and PP/E-glass thermo-
plastic prepregs to produce small ¯at specimens was
®rstly made. Then, some simple components from PP/
E-glass (Borealis) were produced as well. A representa-
tive component is shown in Fig. 13. The parameters
used for the trial were the following: the forming
temperature, which was 200 ^ 3 8C measured at 3
points at the upper and 3 points at the lower surface
layer. The forming and consolidation pressure were kept
constant and equal to 12 bar. The time to reach the
above pressure value was less than 2 s. Finally, the
consolidation time was 5 min. The process parameters
are summarized in Table 4. With the application of the
®nal value of the pressure, the specimen acquires the
®nal shape. The remaining time up to 5 min, which is
the total forming and consolidation process duration, is
needed to achieve suf®cient consolidation. In the present
experimental facility cooling rate is not adjustable. The
indicated process duration does not include the cooling
time. The quality of the produced samples has been
evaluated using C-scan and was satisfactory. The
dimensional analysis has shown that thickness devia-
tions do not exceed 10% around the average component
thickness. An example is shown in Fig. 14. To enable
an assessment of the cost ef®ciency improvement, which
can be expected when using the new technique, the cost
of the APC-2/AS4 plate has been also calculated by
assuming manufacturing of the same plate using the
developed cold diaphragm forming technique. The
calculated costs for the sub-processes A±E, shown in
Fig. 7, have been plotted in Fig. 8. From the com-
parison to the respective cost estimations when assum-
ing use of the autoclave or the conventional diaphragm
forming technique it can be concluded that a signi®cant
cost ef®ciency improvement is expected. Further investiga-
tion on high temperature thermoplastic matrix systems, as
well as derivation of the mechanical properties of the
 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Fig. 14. Measured dimensional stability of a sample produced with the cold diaphragm forming facility.
produced components is still needed to better validate the
proposed technique.
4. Conclusions
An extensive experimental investigation of the
diaphragm forming for the cost ef®cient production of
thermoplastic composite components was made. For the
investigation the thermoplastic APC-2/AS4 was used. A
quality analysis was made and optimized process para-
meters were derived empirically. A generic concept for
optimizing manufacturing processes with regard to product
quality and cost has been proposed. The introduced concept
involves product quality sensitivity analysis and product
cost sensitivity analysis. The former is made to ful®ll
quality features required to meet component performance
objectives. The latter is based on evaluation of historical
component production data and the activity based account-
ing method. The concept was applied to optimize the
diaphragm forming technique. A major modi®cation of
the technique to a new cold diaphragm forming facility
has been proposed. The modi®cation includes an infrared
469
radiation heating system. It leads to the minimization of
heating time and consequently, minimization of costs,
without affecting the component quality. An experimental,
laboratory scale, cold diaphragm forming facility has been
manufactured; it was used to produce thermoplastic com-
posite parts from PP-E/glass. The obtained results are very
promising.
Acknowledgements
The bulk of the experimental work described here was
performed at Hellenic Aerospace Industry during the
involvement of the ®rst author in the BRITE project RI
1B-091 (D) and the EURAM project MA1E-0067. The
cost sensitivity analysis is based on the results of the
BRITE-EURAM II project BRE2.CT92-0169. The authors
would like to thank the European Commission for funding
these projects. Thanks are also due to the Hellenic General
Secretariat for Research and Technology for supporting
the development of the cold diaphragm forming facility as
well as to the Product Department of Philips Lighting SA
Hellenic for the supply of radiation lamps.
470 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
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