The influence of tow tackiness on tow pull-up during the manufacturing of a composite pressure vessel

Double-curved composite structures that are manufactured via automated fiber placement, such as pressure vessels, can take advantage of tow steering to reduce weight. This design freedom comes with the cost of adding internal normal stresses to the tow, possibly leading to wrinkles or pull up. The present work investigates tow pull up both...

Review of image segmentation techniques for layup defect detection in the Automated Fiber Placement process: A comprehensive study to improve AFP inspection

The aerospace industry has established the Automated Fiber Placement process as a common technique for manufacturing fibre reinforced components. In this process multiple composite tows are placed simultaneously onto a tool. Currently in such processes manual testing requires often up to 50% of the manufacturing duration. Moreover, the...

Synthetic image data augmentation for fibre layup inspection processes: Techniques to enhance the data set

In the aerospace industry, the Automated Fiber Placement process is an established method for producing composite parts. Nowadays the required visual inspection, subsequent to this process, typically takes up to 50% of the total manufacturing time and the inspection quality strongly depends on the inspector. A Deep Learning based...

Morphology of ply drops in thermoplastic composite materials manufactured using laser-assisted tape placement

Mechanical properties of composite laminates can be tuned by either tailoring ply orientations or by using ply drops to change thickness profiles. The latter cause resin-rich pockets to form in thermoset composites that are autoclave cured after lay-down. This paper focuses on the morphology of ply drop regions with carbon fibre thermoplastic...