Circularity studies on high performance thermoplastic demonstrators for the aircraft industry – End-of-Life concepts for PEKK/carbon fiber

Abstract

In this study, the circularity of the different end-of-life concepts for PEKK reinforced with high performance carbon fiber composite parts were investigated. For this, two different thermoplastic demonstrators from Clean Sky 2’s ecoTECH Project were used. Recycling and circularity of the thermoplastic components were demonstrated by scraping the continues fiber reinforced thermoplastic fuselage panel parts into small flakes, which then were to be re-used as short fiber reinforced composite particles to produce compression molded Window Frames. For scraping, two different technologies were compared by means of quality, efficiency and environmental impacts. Based on different recycling and re-use options for both thermoplastic fuselage and Window Frame demonstrators, Linear Flow Index (LFI) and Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) parameters were calculated and used to showcase the alternative circularity levels of each scenario