Polymer composites have been widely used in the aviation, aerospace, automotive, military, medical, agricultural and industrial fields due to their excellent mechanical properties, heat resistance, flame retardant, impact resistance and corrosion resistance. In general, their manufacturing process is one of the key factors affecting the life cycle of polymer composites. This article provides an overview of typical manufacturing technologies, including surface coating, additive manufacturing and magnetic pulse powder compaction, which are normally used to reduce the failure behaviour of polymer composites in service so that the quality of composite products can be improved. Advanced polymer composite powder manufacturing processes, the processing mechanism and experimental methods are described, and the influence of different manufacturing processes on the moulding quality is revealed. This investigation can provide suitable methods for the selection of manufacturing technology to improve the quality of polymer composite products.

Polymer-based graphene composite products with high mechanical properties, heat resistance, corrosion resistance and electrical conductivity are obtained by different molding technologies.

Polymer composites are gradually replacing traditional metal materials in the fields of aviation, aerospace, automotive and medicine due to their corrosion resistance, light weight and high strength. Moulding technology and organization morphology of polymer composite are key elements affecting the quality of products and their application, so a vacuum hot pressing process for graphene_x/poly(ether ketone ketone) (PEKK) (x = 0%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%) composite powders is explored with particularly designed moulding parameters to achieve high conductive properties and good mechanical properties in graphene/PEKK composite sheet with thickness of 1.25 mm and diameter of 80 mm. The vacuum environment ensures that the graphene is not oxidized by air during hot pressing molding, which is essential for achieving conductive property in the graphene/PEKK composite; The hot pressing temperature of each graphene/PEKK composite powder is higher than glass transition temperature but lower than melting temperature, which ensures the graphene/PEKK composite powders is fully compacted and then graphene is fully lapped in the composite sheet. In addition, the graphene/PEKK composite sheet shows conductive property when the graphene content increases to 3wt%, and then the conductivity of the composites increases and then decreases with a peak value at 5wt% with increasing graphene content. By comparing the mechanical properties and microstructure morphology of the graphene/PEKK composite sheets, it was obtained that graphene content has an obvious effect on the mechanical properties of the composites, e.g., the mechanical properties will be increased as the graphene content increasing when graphene content is more than 3%. The graphene distribution law of the composite material with different graphene contents is analysed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

In this study, a tungsten–rhenium thin-film thermocouples (TFTCs) is fabricated via magnetron sputtering on silicon carbide ceramics. Cuboid TFTCs probe is sealed with stainless steel shell to make the TFTCs probe sensor. This sensor has an average Seebeck coefficient of 27.2 µV °C ⁻¹ at 1167 °C (temperature difference). The thermal volatilization characteristics, electromotive force behavior, and response time of this tungsten–rhenium TFTC sensor are investigated. The real engine experimental results show that the TFTCs probe sensor can work normally under the high temperature and high-speed air flow environment of 4 Mach and 900 °C. In addition, the correlation between the response speed, substrate thickness, and film thickness is discussed based on simulations of the response to carbon dioxide laser pulses. As indicated by the dynamic experiment results, the laser response time is from 0.49 to 1.51 ms, which is much shorter than that of traditional armored C-type thermocouples (for tungsten–rhenium thermocouples, the response time is around 1 s). Tungsten–rhenium TFTCs probe sensor is a suitable alternative to conventional thermocouples to meet the requirements of measuring high temperatures with a quick response.

Polymer-composite materials have the characteristics of light weight, high load, corrosion resistance, heat resistance, and high oil resistance. In particular, graphene composite has better electrical conductivity and mechanical performance. However, the raw materials of graphene composite are processed into semi-finished products, directly affecting their performance and service life. The electromagnetic pulse compaction was initially studied to get the product Graphene/PEKK composite powder. Simultaneously, spark plasma sintering was used to get the bars to determine the electrical conductivity of Graphene/PEKK composite. On the basis of this result, conducting Graphene/PEKK composite powder can be processed by electromagnetic pulse compaction. Finite element numerical analysis was used to obtain process parameters during the electromagnetic pulse compaction. The results show that discharge voltage and discharge capacitance influence on the magnetic force, which is a main moulding factor affecting stress, strain and density distribution on the specimen during electromagnetic pulse compaction in a few microseconds.

The clinching technology attracted increasing attention in recent years, but its application might be restricted due to the growing employment of materials that are difficult to join and hybrid structures involving different mechanical performance materials. Traditional clinching technology has limitations of strain rate sensitivity, ductility and damage fracture when applied to materials with high strength, low strain-to-failure and low plasticity. However, the ductility and formability of the material represent a limitation for the clinching process. The present study explored some concepts of clinching, such as hole, friction-assisted, laser-assisted, electro-hydraulic, electromagnetically assisted and hot assisted clinching, for the difficult-to-form sheets. The paper includes the description of the deformation mechanism of clinched joints and the analysis of clinched joint performance and applicability.