Since the aerospace industry is continuously looking for new strong and lightweight solutions to existing aircraft parts, Fused Composite Manufacturing has much potential for future applications as it incorporates both the freedom of design and a continuous fiber reinforcement. The current state of the technology is of low maturity as engineering thermoplastics are of use with low Fiber Volume Content and part complexity is limited due 3-axis kinematics of the used printers.
As such, the research presented in this report aims to evaluate the feasibility of such FCM process with regard to aerospace applications by the integration and optimisation of a novel print head within a 6-axis industrial robot, capable of printing high performance prepreg filament in all arbitrary directions.