An additive manufacturing (AM) system including a platform including a mold die mounted on the platform, the mold die having a surface shape corresponding to a mold cavity used for thermoforming a thermoplastic sheet, and an AM assembly configured to perform an AM method on the thermoplastic sheet having been thermoformed with the mold die. A method for performing AM on a thermoplastic sheet comprises the steps of thermoforming a thermoplastic sheet using a mold die, and performing an AM method on the thermoformed thermoplastic sheet in the mold die as a substrate.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a lightweight composite material structure while suppressing a drop in strength. In a composite material structure, which is configured as a fiber-reinforced plastic composite material extending in one direction and having a plurality of holes (5) formed at intervals in a row in the one direction and which is subjected to a tensile load and/or a compressive load in the one direction, a peripheral region (3a) around the holes (5) comprises a first area (10) obtained by bending composite material, which is reinforced using continuous fibers that have been made even in the longitudinal direction, so that the center line of the width (W) of the composite material weaves between adjacent holes (5) and zigzags in the one direction. The tensile rigidity and/or compressive rigidity in the one direction of the peripheral region (3a) around the holes (5) is lower than the tensile rigidity and/or the compressive rigidity in the one direction of the other regions (3b) that surround the peripheral regions (3a).

A method for manufacturing a blade for a vehicle suspension, the blade having a curved profile in a rest state and being made of a thermoplastic material, the method implementing: a winding step in which an intermediate element is made by continuously winding a thermoplastic strip around a support; a heating step in which the intermediate element is positioned and then heated in a heating device; a placement step in which the heated intermediate element is placed in a shaping mold; a thermoforming step in which a second part of the shaping mold is closed on a first part so as to obtain the blade.

An inspection device includes a storage unit for storing a mechanical property inference model generated by machine learning based on mechanical property information and nondestructive inspection information of a fiber-reinforced first molded article region for which the mechanical property information and the nondestructive inspection information are known, the mechanical property inference model being configured to be input nondestructive inspection information of a second molded article region which is reinforced with reinforcing fibers for predicting unknown mechanical property information of the second molded article region. The inspection device acquires the nondestructive inspection information of the second molded article region; inputs the nondestructive inspection information to the mechanical property inference model; acquire the mechanical property information of the second molded article region predicted by the mechanical property inference model; and outputs the mechanical property information of the second molded article region.

A process is provided for thermal molding an article with at least one layer of thermoplastic fibers that are non-woven and uni-directionally oriented in combination with at least one layer of reinforcing fibers. The reinforcing fibers including glass, carbon, nature based, and combinations thereof; alone or mixed with chopped thermoplastic fibers. Upon subjecting the layers to sufficient heat to thermally bond in the presence of non-oriented filler fibers, thermoplastic fiber fusion encapsulates the filler fibers. The filler fibers impart physical properties to the resulting article and the residual unidirectional orientation of the thermoplastic melt imparts physical properties in the fiber direction to the article. By combining layers with varying orientations of uni-directional fibers relative to one another, the physical properties of the resulting article may be controlled and extended relative to conventional thermoplastic moldings. The uni-directional fibers may have discontinuities along the length of individual fibers.

The invention relates to a reinforcing material (1) consisting of a unidirectional reinforcing web (2) formed of one or more carbon reinforcing yarns (3), associated on each of its faces with a veil of polymeric fibers (4, 5) chosen from among nonwoven materials, the polymeric portion of the reinforcing material representing from 0.5% to 10% of the total weight of the reinforcing material (1), and preferably from 2% to 6% of its total weight, said unidirectional reinforcing web (2) comprising one or a series of reinforcing yarns (3) individually twisted having a twist of 3 turns/m to 15 turns/m, preferably from 6 turns/m to 12 turns/m.