Effects of UD and twill reinforcements in hybrid sheet molding compound laminates

This work proposes a novel manufacturing solution to locally reinforce a Sheet Molding Compound (SMC) with continuous fiber prepreg in a single-step compression molding operation. An adapted SMC process allowing for the manufacturing of continuous carbon fiber-reinforced SMC was successfully implemented, and a layer of fabric was added to mitigate the waviness induced during processing. Plates with different stacking sequences were manufactured and used for mechanical characterization to understand the effect of hybridization over tensile and flexural properties. It emerges that hybridization led to a 137% increase in tensile strength and up to 147% rise in flexural modulus compared to the standard SMC baseline. Additionally, the hybridization process helped reduce the variability in elastic and strength properties.