Don 0. Evans
FiberPkementHead r
T i Restart Rollers
ControlledHeat
tow to independently conform to the surface normal to the surface while the machine is
of the part. For example, when the head lami- laminating tows. The machine also has 24 pro-
nates a curved path, the outer tows of the fiber grammable electronic bidirectional tensioners,
band pull more length than the inner tows. which are mounted in a creel. These tensioners
A rolling compaction device, combined provide individual tow payout and maintain a
with heat for tack enhancement, laminates the precise tension. The fiber placement head is
tows onto the lay-up surface. This action of mounted on the end of the wrist. The head
pressing the tows onto the work surface (or a precisely dispenses, cuts, clamps and restarts
previously laid ply) adheres the tows to the individual prepreg tows.
lay-up surface and removes trapped air, mini- To increase productivity some machines are
mizing the need for vacuum debulking. equipped with dual mandrel stations (Fig.
Figure 22.2 is a diagram of a Cincinnati 22.3). This setup allows two sets of lay-up
Milacron 'Viper' Fiber Placement System tools to be placed on the machine, ensuring a
(FPS). This system has seven axes of motion constant supply of work for the head. During
and is CNC controlled. The machine consists routine manual operations such as hand lay-
of three position axes (carriage, tilt, crossfeed), ing small plies, inspecting plies, or vacuum
three orientation axes (yaw, pitch, roll) and an debulking on one part set, the head simply
axis to rotate the mandrel. All of these axes are shifts to the other mandrel and picks up the
necessary to make sure the processing head is program where it left off.
The tow width of the material is very guided through a fiber delivery system and
important in controlling the gap between the head, but high tack is needed when it is being
prepregged tows. For example if the fiber compacted onto the surface.
placement head is designed to lay down tows Materials that have a low tack can be
that are 3.24.38 cm (0.125+0.015in) wide, the despooled with a fiber tension of 0.45 kg (1lb)
tows will be compacted onto the surface in or less. These low tensions are achieved
3.2 mm (0.125in) spacings. If the tow is exactly because the resin does not stick to the spool or
3.2 mm (0.125in) wide, there will be no gap the components of the fiber delivery system.
between the tows. If the tows are 2.5mm This lower fiber tension is needed while fiber
(0.100in) wide, there will be a 0.63 mm placing concave areas. A higher tension will
(0.025in) wide gap between the tows. If the cause the fiber to bridge over concave areas.
tows are 3.8 mm (0.150 in) wide, there will be Materials with low tack levels also have less
a 0.63 mm (0.025in) overlap. tendency to deform or rope while being pulled
Figure 22.4 shows a typical width his- through the fiber delivery system. They also
togram of a spool of tow material. To develop transfer less resin to the components of the
this histogram a spool of tow was run through fiber delivery system and head. This reduces
a measuring device, which measured the the number of times that these components
width at 1100 locations. The average width is need to be cleaned because of resin build up.
3.20 mm (0.126 in) and the standard deviation Resin build up in the head causes it to mal-
is 0.13 mm (0.005 in). A typical width his- function.
togram of a slit tape will show an average The tack of most resins can be reduced by
width of 3.18 mm (0.125 in) and a standard lowering their temperature. To accomplish
deviation of 0.08 mm (0.003 in). Maintaining this, most fiber placement machines are
the quality of tow and slit tape will greatly equipped with an air conditioned creel. The
improve the quality of the composite laminate fiber placement head also has some means of
and the reliability of the process. cooling the components that come in contact
The ideal fiber placement material has no with the tow material. To achieve the desired
tack at 21°C (70°F) and high tack from 27°C to tack required to adhere the tow material to the
32°C (80°F to 90°F). Low tack is needed when surface, the area where the material is com-
the material is being pulled off the spool and pacted onto the surface is heated. This is
accomplished by blowing hot air at the nip
point of the compaction roller (Fig. 22.1).
73 20 mm
0.13 mm
: 3.56mm
2.74 mm
I # of Samples. 1100
22.3 TOOLING CONSIDERATIONS
The tooling for fiber placement provides the
shape of the part being fabricated and a suit-
able surface for the machine to lay tows onto.
It also has features that can be used to associ-
ate the electronic data’s coordinate system,
which describes the laying surface, to the
machine’s coordinate system. The electronic
data must accurately represent the finished
2.03 2.54 4.06
tool. The smaller the surface of curvature is,
TowWdth (mm)
the more important it is that the electronic data
accurately represent the finished tool. If the
Fig. 22.4 Tow width histogram. electronic data does not accurately represent
480 Fiber placement
22.4 PLY SHAPE length. The exterior ply boundaries can the
Fiber placement is used to fabricate simple extended in the areas where there are mini-
parts such as flat panels or complicated parts mum cut length problems. These extended
such as an inlet duct, which is square on one areas can later be cut off. Interior plies must be
end and round on the other (Fig. 22.6).The ply reshaped to match the fiber angles.
shapes can be any size or geometric form. A The designer must also consider the end
ply shape can also include interior ply bound- locations of the tow. Each tow is cut at a 90"
aries which create holes. angle; because of this the ending angle of the
When generating ply shapes, the designer tows may not match the angle of the ply
must consider the shortest tow length the boundary. Figure 22.8 shows three different
machine can lay down. This length is the dis- ply boundary conditions for a 45" ply. The
tance from the start of the lay-down point to
where the tow is cut in the head. Figure 22.7
shows exterior and interior ply shapes of an Outer Pb bunday 45'
Fig. 22.6 Fiber placing an inlet duct. Fig. 22.7 Ply boundary adjustments.
aircraft structure. The black areas are the areas amount the tows can cover the ply bound-
that cannot be fiber placed because the length aries is specified by the percent of ply
of the required tow is less than the shortest boundary coverage. A 100% value is typically
allowable fiber length. These areas could be used on the larger ply boundaries that are
laid in by hand, or the ply shape could be later trimmed to shape. This makes sure that
adjusted, as in Fig. 22.7, so that the required all of the fibers go to the edge of the bound-
fiber length
" is longer" that the shortest cut arv. A 50% value is used on interior plv I d
482 Fiber placement
A5 DEGREE COURSE
ON MANDREL 45 DEGREE COURSE
FLAT LAYOUT
STEERING: 30.0 R
LENGTH: 35.11 cm
STEERING: 27.4 R
LENGTH: 32.14 cm
TRIANGULAR GAP
\
/'
,' 0% OVERLAP
/'
a
,'
'.
'. '.
u
50% OVERLAP
TRIANGULAR OVERLAP-/'\ /
u
100% OVERLAP
'bumpy' because of the overlaps. The 50% which is to be manufactured by fiber place-
specification is most commonly used because ment. The first is concave surfaces and the
the smaller gaps and overlaps tend to average second is areas with small radii of curvature.
out each other as the laminate is built up. The When consideringa part with a concave sur-
other technique that helps average these trian- face area, the designer must make sure the
gular gaps and overlaps is to offset each ply byfiber placement head can fit into the concave
one and a half tow widths. This ensures that area without hitting the surface of the part.
the small triangular gaps and overlaps do not There are some techniques that can be used to
align on top of each other. overcome some of these limitations. To help the
head fit into a concave area the offline software
has a feature known as collision avoidance.
22.7 SURFACE GEOMETRY
The software knows the part and head geome-
Fiber placement can automate the fabrication try. It constantly checks to see if the two are
of many composite part geometries that in the colliding. If they collide, the software will rock
past could only be laminated using hand lay- the head off the surface normal away from the
up. The types of surface geometries that can be collision. Figure 22.12 shows a part with a
fiber placed range from fan blades to full 360" small concave area being fiber placed. As the
asymmetrical shells (Fig. 22.11). There are two head stays normal to the surface and
surface features that the designer needs to pay approaches the concave area, it will collide into
special attention to when designing a part the part, as shown in the upper exploded view.
Surface geomety 485
SURFACE NORMAL
2 COLLISION POINT
NO COLLISION AVOIDANCE
SURFACE NORMAL 7
C"
1
'-,a I-
I O " COLLISION AVOIDANCE
TOOL SURFACE
7
contact with the surface. The part can still be describing the tool surface matches the actual
fiber placed but the number of tows in the tool surface. It also verifies that the transfor-
fiber band should be reduced to match the mation matrix, used to associate the part's
compaction line width. On the concave sur- electronic data coordinate system to the tool's
face the radius should be increased to allow position in the machine's coordinate system, is
the compactor to contact the surface, other- correct. This is accomplished by watching the
wise the tows will bridge over the small compactor as it follows the part surfaces. Dry
radius of curvature. running also verifies that collision avoidance
worked properly.
Further reading 487
The next step in first article inspection is to scale and lay it on the ply normal to the fiber
load the machine with tows and fiber place direction.All the gaps along the 30.5 cm (12 in)
each ply. After each ply is fiber placed, the ply distance are measured and summed. If this
is inspected for the correct fiber angle, ply loca- value exceeds a pre-determined design crite-
tion, band-to-band overlap and for missing rion the area is reworked.
tows. The easiest way to inspect for fiber angle
and ply location is to have a Mylar template FURTHER READING
that has the ply boundary plotted onto it and a
line for the fiber angle. The template needs to Barth, James R. 1990. Fabrication of Complex
be located with alignment marks or pins that Composite Structures Using Advance Fiber
Placement Technology. 35th Intern. SAMPE
are part of the tool. A Mylar template will not Symp., 2-5 April 1990.
work on surface geometries with curvatures in Enders, Mark L. and Hopkins, Paul C. 1991.
both directions. For these geometries, a formed Developments in the Fiber Placement Process.
inspection tool should be fabricated. 36th Intern. S A M P E Symp., April 1991.
After the first article inspection, subsequent Enders, Mark L. 1991. The Fiber Placement Process.
parts need to have each ply visually inspected Intern. Conf: Comp. Mater., (ICCM/8), July 1991.
for excessive gaps and overlaps, lost tows, Evans, Don O., Vaniglia, Milo M. and Hopkins, Paul
C. 1989. Fiber Placement Process Study. 34th
twisted tows, wrinkled tows and bridging Intern. S A M P E Symp., 8-11 May 1989.
tows. Table 22.1 is an example of a typical in- Evans, Don 0. 1993. Design Considerations for
process inspection criteria. Another criterion Fiber Placement. 38th Intevn. S A M P E Syrnp.,
used to evaluate gaps is to take a 30.5 cm (12in) 10-13 May 1993.