Composite Additive Manufacturing for Gap-Free Reinforcement Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Filament winding methods for manufacturing composite vessels are design-limited and require excessive raw materials due to perimeter variability along the mandrel, leading to gaps between filaments that weaken the structure and increase cost and weight.
Innovation Solution
An additive manufacturing system that slices a virtual model of the composite structure into multiple slices, adjusts the geometry of sacrificial sections to reduce perimeter variability, and generates tool paths for an additive manufacturing machine to discharge reinforcements, ensuring precise alignment and minimizing material usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If filament winding is used to fabricate vessels with constant mandrel perimeter, then filament alignment is improved, but design flexibility deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The mandrel is segmented into multiple slices along its length, with each slice having an independently adjustable perimeter. This allows different sections of the mandrel to have different perimeters, enabling complex vessel geometries while maintaining constant perimeter within each slice for proper filament alignment.
Solution Approach 2:
The mandrel perimeter is made dynamically adjustable through sacrificial sections that can be selectively removed. During fabrication, the mandrel maintains a constant perimeter for proper filament winding, then sacrificial sections are removed to achieve the desired variable perimeter final geometry.
2Adaptability or versatility
If filament winding is used with variable mandrel perimeter, then design flexibility is improved, but filament alignment deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The fabrication process is segmented into distinct phases: first fabricating with a constant perimeter mandrel for proper alignment, then removing sacrificial sections to achieve variable perimeter geometry. This segmentation allows both good alignment and design flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The constant perimeter mandrel structure is prepared in advance before fabrication begins. Sacrificial sections are pre-positioned to maintain constant perimeter during winding, then removed afterward to create the desired variable perimeter shape, ensuring proper filament alignment is achieved first.
3Strength
If additional layers of material are added to compensate for gaps, then structural strength is improved, but material usage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The mandrel is divided into required sections and sacrificial sections. The sacrificial sections are temporarily added to maintain constant perimeter during fabrication, then removed after curing. This allows proper filament alignment without needing additional material layers, achieving both strength and material efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
Sacrificial sections are used as temporary, disposable mandrel components that are added during fabrication to enable proper filament alignment, then removed after the vessel is cured. These temporary structures allow optimal material usage without compromising final vessel strength.
Data Source
AI summary
A method is disclosed for use in additively manufacturing a composite structure from reinforcements wetted with a matrix. The method may include slicing a virtual model of the composite structure into multiple slices that are adjacent to each other along a length direction of the composite structure and determining points of the reinforcements passing through each of the multiple slices. The method may further include clocking the points differently around each of the multiple slices and generating at least one tool path including a sequenced subset of the points. The method may additionally include causing an additive manufacturing machine to discharge the reinforcements along the at least one tool path.