Design for composites: Derivation of manufacturable geometries for unidirectional tape laying

Abstract

Even though providing excellent specific stiffness and strength properties, high specific energy absorption and a great degree of design freedom, fibre-reinforced plastics still have to make their way into higher volume applications. Addressing the manufacturing challenges, particularly efficient production techniques are Automated Tape Laying (ATL) and Automated Fiber Placement (AFP), as pointed out by various studies and use cases. However, current Computer Aided Engineering approaches for optimised laminate design still lack the capability to produce results suitable for ATL/AFP. A new method for deriving tape courses from any finite element laminate optimisation result is presented and applied to a virtual demonstrator. An outlook is given on further necessities of extending current laminate optimisation approaches.