Preform Shaping via Fiber Orientation Adjustment
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Solution Overview
Problem
In composite manufacturing via RTM methods, achieving optimal fiber orientation in preforms is challenging, leading to decreased strength and rigidity due to fiber orientation changes during shaping, especially in complex configurations like curved surfaces.
Innovation Solution
The method involves using a shaping mold with specific surfaces to bend sheet-form fibrous components with varying fiber orientation angles, ensuring that the fiber orientation after bending aligns with target angles, thereby maintaining uniformity and enhancing the structural integrity of the composite.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Shape
If sheet-form fibrous components are bent to form complex three-dimensional configurations, then the preform can achieve complex shapes, but fiber orientation changes occur leading to decreased strength and rigidity
Solution Approach 1:
The method performs preliminary orientation adjustment by bending sheet-form fibrous components with initially varying fiber orientations before final assembly. The shaping mold pre-bends the sheets to align fibers in target directions, ensuring optimal fiber orientation is achieved before resin impregnation and curing, thereby maintaining strength in complex configurations
2Strength
If fiber orientation angles are varied in sheet-form fibrous components, then optimal fiber alignment can be achieved after bending, but manufacturing precision becomes more difficult to control
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the fiber orientation parameter systematically by providing sheet-form fibrous components with deliberately varied initial orientations. The shaping mold applies specific bending parameters to transform these varied initial orientations into uniform target orientations, achieving both fiber alignment and manufacturing precision through controlled parameter transformation
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2A~2B
Figure 3A~3B
AI summary
In a preform shaping method, a fiber stack that has a plurality of fiber layers by stacking sheet-form fibrous components is manufactured and a preform that has a configuration in which a first surface and a second surface one or both of which are curved surfaces are coupled is manufactured by bending the sheet-form fibrous components after or while stacking the sheet-form fibrous components. A first sheet-form fibrous component and a second sheet-form fibrous component fiber length directions of which are set to such different directions before a bending process as to be target fiber length directions after the bending process and which form the first surface and the second surface, respectively, after the bending process are disposed in order to form at least one fiber layer of the plurality of fiber layers.