Mechanism for wrapping fiber around the Y fork

Abstract

Fiber reinforcement on the practical parts with complex geometries (e.g., Y fork) is a challenge for the industrial development of composites fiber wrapping (FW). FW path planning for the Y fork is studied here, which is a prerequisite for the implementation of the FW process using a robotic work-cell. The feasibility of this work-cell is explored, and more precisely, two path generation algorithms for guiding the robot movement are proposed. One is used to calculate uniformly arranged paths at a constant angle to the axes of the tubular Y fork, where no overlaps and gaps are created under the assumption that the maximum geodesic curvature constraint in FW is ignored. Different from the first one, the second algorithm is presented where the curvature is restricted. Both of these algorithms are implemented by using the MATLABTM suite to carry out re-development of ABAQUS software. Finally, simulations are demonstrated to illustrate the validity of the methodology presented here.