An experimental and simulative study on the defects appeared during tow steering in automated fiber placement

In the present study, an extensive experimental investigation using various process parameters and steering radii is performed to gain a deeper understanding of the defect formation process during tow steering in Automated Fiber Placement (AFP). Five major defects appeared during the tow steering are identified and effective factors on the formation of each of them are described. Furthermore, a finite element modeling approach is presented for the global modeling of the prepreg deposition process. The required model parameters are experimentally characterized. The application of the proposed framework for capturing and modeling two major defects appeared during steering namely, the blisters and wrinkles is presented. Simulation results are presented and compared to their corresponding AFP trial. It is demonstrated that the modeling approach is very well capable of capturing the trends, patterns, and frequency of both wrinkles and blisters.