The Role of Melting on Intimate Contact Development in Laser-Assisted Tape Placement of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites

Laser-assisted tape placement (LATP) and thermoplastic composites (TPCs) pre-impregnated (prepreg) tapes are a promising combination of technologies; given the in-situ capabilities of the TPCs and the high degree of automation achievable with LATP. However, laminate quality, measured as final void content, tends to decrease when increasing...

LayLa: An open-source offline programming framework for composite deposition

The versatility of automated composite technologies granted the possibility of manufacturing laminates with a continuous variation of fiber orientation, also known as Variable Stiffness Laminates (VSL). Despite offering enough dexterity to be adapted for composite deposition, industrial manipulators are nontrivial to integrate into other...

Thermal deconsolidation of thermoplastic prepreg tapes during Laser-Assisted Fiber Placement

The automation of thermoplastic composite production and the drive towards out-of-autoclave processes, is of great relevance in the aerospace and lightweight composite structures industry. Hence, there is a crucial need for developing the current state of material and process understanding, in order to increase the technology readiness levels of...

Numerical Simulation for the Pressure Distribution of the Compaction Roller in in-situ consolidation processes

Automated tape or fiber placement (ATP/AFP) with in-situ consolidation has been identified as a promising manufacturing technique for thermoplastic (TP) composites, which are highly in-demand in the aerospace industry for future aircraft structural applications. This manufacturing technique is attractive since it has the potential to eliminate...