Remanufacturing of woven carbon fibre fabric production waste into high performance aligned discontinuous fibre composites

Abstract

The composites industry generates considerable volumes of waste in a wide variety of forms, from the production of by-products to end-of-life parts. This paper focuses on the remanufacturing of dry fibre off-cuts, produced during the composite fabric weaving process, into highly aligned discontinuous fibre prepreg tapes with High Performance Discontinuous Fibre (HiPerDiF) technology. Unidirectional laminate specimens are prepared using various combinations of fibre lengths and tested in tension, obtaining a stiffness of 80 GPa, a strength of 800 MPa, and a failure strain of 1%. Several applications are envisaged for the produced tape: adhesive film, feedstock for filament winding, and tow for weaved fabrics. This work demonstrates the possibility to extract value from what is currently considered manufacturing waste.