Abstract: With the thermoplastic PA6 based continuous carbon fibre reinforced aluminium laminates(CFRTP/AL) as the research object, the basic mechanical properties of four different fibre metal laminates(CFRTP/AL) are studied based on uniaxial tension and three-point bending tests. The hot NAKAJIMA bulging properties and large deformation damage failure behaviour of FMLs at room temperature and high temperature (25 ℃, 240 ℃) are compared investigated. Furthermore, an equivalent modelling strategy of discontinuous micro shearing is further adopted on the basis of ABAQUS to effectively simulate the bulging and damage failure behaviours of this CFRTP/AL in warm forming process. The results show that the warm formability of orthogonal-ply structure CFRTP/AL is superior to other FMLs. The formability of CFRTP/AL at room temperature is poor whereas its interface connection quality of heterogeneous materials is excellent, and no interface delamination happens. By increasing the forming temperature, the formability of CFRTP/AL is improved. The damage failure of the surface metal is later than that of the core composite layer, and the cooperative deformation ability of the heterogeneous material layers is inferior. In addition, effective strain field distribution of CFRTP/AL within its hybrid material layers can be obtained by using discontinuous micro shear equivalent modeling strategy, and valid prediction of overall damage failure behaviour can be achieved.

Key words: thermoplastic carbon fiber, fiber metal laminate, warm forming, bulging formability, damage prediction