Composite Ply Flat Pattern Generation for Folded Structures
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current commercial draping simulation systems are limited in simulating the draping of composite plies, particularly failing to support overlapping or folding in three-dimensional space, which is essential for accurately generating flat patterns for complex parts like tubular-shaped mechanical parts made of composite materials, leading to issues like fiber discontinuity and structural degradation.
Innovation Solution
A method is developed to generate a flat pattern for composite plies by receiving a tool model and ply coverage, determining subset regions, merging plies, aligning fiber orientations, defining staging instances, determining laydown order, and running a draping simulation to solve staging instances, allowing for the representation and manufacturing of folded composite plies with overlapping or folding capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If current commercial draping simulation systems are used to simulate composite plies, then the simulation process is simple, but the system cannot support overlapping or folding in three-dimensional space, leading to fiber discontinuity and structural degradation
Solution Approach 1:
The composite ply is divided into multiple staging instances, where each instance represents a portion of the ply at a specific stage of the laydown process. This segmentation allows the simulation to track and maintain fiber continuity across overlapping and folding regions by processing each staging instance sequentially according to a determined laydown order.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by determining the laydown order of staging instances before executing the draping simulation. This preliminary ordering ensures that when plies overlap or fold in three-dimensional space, the simulation already has the correct sequence to maintain fiber continuity, preventing structural degradation.
2Ease of manufacture
If a single ply covers multiple subset regions, then the manufacturing process is simplified, but fiber orientations may not align properly across different regions
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the simulation process by creating multiple staging instances from a single ply, where each instance can have its fiber orientation independently aligned to the specific subset region it covers. This dynamic staging approach maintains ease of manufacture by using a single physical ply while ensuring precise fiber orientation alignment across all regions through the computational modeling.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods for generating a flat pattern for a composite ply. A method includes receiving a tool model and a ply coverage, wherein the ply coverage defines a plurality of plies, a fiber orientation for each of the plies, and a boundary for each of the plies, determining one or more subset regions on the tool model based on the boundaries from the ply coverage, creating a merged ply combining the plies and aligning the fiber orientations, defining staging instances of the merged ply for each ply covering a subset region, determining a laydown order of the staging instances, running a draping simulation using the laydown order to solve the staging instances, generating a flat pattern from the draping simulation, and storing the flat pattern of the composite ply.