Abstract

Process-induced stresses can play a major role in degradation of a part or structure made of composite materials. The new Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) manufacturing method of composites allows manufacturers and designers to potentially manufacture composite parts with greater precision and speed. However, for the case of thermoplastic composites because of extreme manufacturing environment such as high temperature these advantages could be jeopardized by process-induced residual stresses. In this work we looked into process-induced stresses caused by interaction of mold and composites considering temperature dependency and time dependency behavior of composite materials and proposed a new numerical step-by-step scheme to take into account mechanisms of stress generation and stress relaxation. Also, an in situ strain measurement using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is proposed to measure strains of the composite tape during manufacturing.