Research On Fiber Placement Trajectory Design Algorithm On Meshed Surface

As one of the key technologies of Automatic Fiber Placement (AFP), the CAD/CAM softwaretechnology is the foundation of digital forming for composite structures. According to currenttrajectory planning methods and combined with the development tendency of AFP technology, a pathplanning algorithm based on meshed surface is proposed in this paper. Mainly include placementtrajectory designing, coverage analysis, boundary treatment and etc.Because of working mode and technical features of AFP, the trajectory planning should meetsome design requirements which mainly include demands of directionality, placement ability, fullcoverage, economy and etc. This article analyzes emphasizedly the trajectory placement ability andproposes influence factors of it. On the comparison of several common ways of trajectory planning,this paper chooses way of path designing on meshed surface. To improve relevance between discretedata of meshed surface and generate trajectories more quickly, some pretreatment is done to thediscrete data.Along with the AFP technology development, the width of tows used is gradually increasing toimprove efficiency of placement. This blurs the boundaries of AFP and Automatic Tape Layer(ATL).A signal algorithm of AFP or ATL is difficult to balance. According to this, a path planningalgorithm which can obtain adaptive trajectories depending on the width of prepreg and characters ofsurface is proposed in this paper. Different kinds of reference trajectory can be worked out byadjusting relevant parameters. When generating other placement trajectories by reference trajectoryfor variable cross-section model, it can adjust the separation distance between trajectories accordingto the section dimension and placement angle at each section. Later on, coverage analysis betweentrajectories is also taken out. For boundary treatment, the extension of fibers is only done when thetrajectories adjoin boundary of model with irregular boundary. This can not only improve thetrajectory planning efficiency but also ensure the accuracy of designing.At last, the software of above algorithms is developed by Visual C++6.0and SQL Server mixedprogramming which have been verified in CATIA and practical placement. The results show that thealgorithms can satisfy the requirements of trajectory design for AFP and meet the demands ofpractical placement.