Layup Strategies for in-situ Automated Fiber Placement of Complex Geometries

Abstract

With meticulous process control and the correct manufacturing parameters, competitive mechanical properties have been achieved using in-situ Automated Fiber Placement (AFP). Complex geometries, particularly double curvatures required for real part geomemtries, however, present additional obstacles to the already challenging process. Without post-consolidation in a hot press or autoclave, the severity of geometry-related deviations from the ideal ply composition, namely fiber steering defects, gaps or overlaps, remains unquantified. Variable Stiffness Panels can be used as a two-dimensional representation of double-curved geometries, since the curved layup paths result in the same kind of defects. This work suggests optimized layup strategies for constant curvature Variable Stiffness Panels considering in-situ AFP process characteristics and limitations. The correlations between layup strategy parameters and the resulting layup deviations is analyzed, providing algorithms for optimized layup strategies for in-situ AFP on complex geometries.