A Fibre-Path Generation Algorithm for Fibre-Steered Variable Stiffness Laminates

The development of novel materials has been of great interest to the aerospace industry in the pursuit of efficiency and cost reduction. Fibre-steered variable stiffness laminates have promising characteristics due to the ability to better tailor designs for expected loading, as the fibre orientation can be varied within a layer. This thesis was...

Optimal design, manufacturing and testing of non-conventional laminates

Composite materials are finding increasing application, for example in commercial aircraft. Traditionally fiber angles are restricted to 0°,±45° and 90°. The current work exploits the possibility of using multiple ’non-conventional’ laminates where either fiber steering (‘variable stiffness’), ply drops (‘variable thickness’), or a...

Influence of stiffeners on a variable stiffness laminate optimisation

Engineers are still looking for ways to improve the performance of materials used in aircraft. A major step was going from metal parts to laminates in order to save weight significantly. Those laminates existed of fibres with a constant orientation, and became laminates with changing fibre directions. Variable stiffness laminates (VSL) are used...

Optimum Design of Steered Fibre Composite Cylinders with Arbitrary Cross-sections

Automated fibre placement (AFP) machines are able to place simultaneously several bundles of fibres, called tows, on a surface. Using AFP machines, it is also possible to manufacture composite laminates with fibres placed in curvilinear paths. The fibre orientations and stiffness properties of these laminates are spatially varied and hence they...