Session: 03-15-01: Composites Design for Automated Fiber Placement and Additive Manufacturing

Paper Number: 134719

134719 - Design for Additive Manufacturing (Dfam) of Continuous Fiber Reinforced Composites 

Additive manufacturing (AM) with continuous carbon fiber (CCF) reinforced filaments offers design freedom to fabricate parts with the desired topology and fiber paths. AM is generally well-suited for CCF composite design optimization, as designers can specifically tailor the positioning (steering) of CCF filaments for printing, albeit within certain manufacturing limitations. This presentation showcases the performance of stiffness-based and strength-based optimization techniques as applied to different benchmark structural domains and loading scenarios. The implementation of manufacturing constraints during the optimization phase, as well as in subsequent stages of design and manufacturing, will be discussed. The optimization methods used here concurrently designed the topology and fiber paths. CCF filaments were printed to follow the optimized fiber paths, and a discontinuous fiber reinforced filament was used to fill in the remaining gaps. The parts were then compression molded for full consolidation, and the resulting parts were tested for their stiffness and strength (ultimate loads at failure) with the aid of digital image correlation (DIC). Separately, finite element analyses (FEA) were used to computationally predict the stiffnesses and failures of the parts. FEA simulations were able to closely predict experimental stiffness results for all benchmark samples. In some cases, a progressive damage failure model was found to perform more accurately than a linear static simulation for failure load predictions. Micro-computed tomography (μCT) examination of failed coupons showed that CCF flow (deviations) during compression molding were a major source of discrepancy in strength values between experiments and FEA.  

Presenting Author: Timothy Yap The University of Texas At Austin

Presenting Author Biography: Timothy Yap is a PhD student working on the material extrusion of high-performance thermoplastic materials and their composites, as well as the automated fiber placement of LM-PAEK(TM) carbon fiber composite tapes. His work lies in the confluence of materials, processing, and properties.