Thermal management for thermoset automated fiber placement based on infrared heater structure arrangement

Layup temperature is a vital factor that affects the production quality of automated fiber placement for thermoset composites. For high quality production, this paper proposes a new prediction model of layup temperature by considering the structure of infrared heater of automatic fiber placement equipment. The model was first verified by comparing with the temperature results of layup experiments. Then a prediction on the effects of heater structure arrangement on layup temperature was conducted in the model. The research shows that the length of infrared tube and the radian of reflective-film have significant influences, rather than other parameters. According to this investigation, a heater structure-based heating strategy was presented in the paper to efficiently achieve constant temperature control in variable speed layup process.