Abstract
Automated fiber placement (AFP) is widely used to manufacture composite lightweight structures in different industries, including aerospace. Prepreg tackiness plays an important role in the AFP process. This study aims to measure the prepreg tackiness at different AFP processing conditions and predict the optimum parameters for high tackiness levels. Two in-house setups were developed for layup and to measure tackiness. The first setup was designed to simulate the AFP process and precisely control layup speed, compaction force, and temperature. It is used to layup the prepreg under different conditions and with different rollers. The second setup performs a peel-off test to measure the sample’s tackiness. The Taguchi method is applied to optimize the layup process parameters and find the optimal combination for high resultant tackiness. It is also applied to study the effect of the placing roller. Analysis of results shows that prepreg tack is affected by the interaction among the process parameters rather than the individual effect of these parameters. The study shows that the Taguchi method is suitable to solve the stated problem with a minimum number of trials as its results are experimentally validated.
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