Citation: de Sá Rodrigues, J.;
Gonçalves, P.T.; Pina, L.; Gomes de
Almeida, F. Modelling the Heating
Process in the Transient and Steady
State of an In Situ Tape-Laying
Machine Head. J. Manuf. Mater.
Process. 2022, 6, 8. https://
doi.org/10.3390/jmmp6010008
Academic Editors: Arkadiusz Gola,
Izabela Nielsen and Patrik Grznár
Received: 24 November 2021
Accepted: 7 January 2022
Published: 11 January 2022
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affil-
iations.
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Manufacturing and
Materials Processing
Journal of
Article
Modelling the Heating Process in the Transient and Steady
State of an In Situ Tape-Laying Machine Head
Jhonny de Sá Rodrigues
1,
* , Paulo Teixeira Gonçalves
1
, Luis Pina
1
and Fernando Gomes de Almeida
2
1
Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (INEGI), Rua Dr. Roberto Frias,
4200-465 Porto, Portugal; prgoncalves@inegi.up.pt (P.T.G.); luismppina@gmail.com (L.P.)
2
LAETA-INEGI, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n,
4200-465 Porto, Portugal; fga@fe.up.pt
* Correspondence: jsrodrigues@inegi.up.pt
Abstract:
As the use of composite materials increases, the search for suitable automated processes
gains relevance for guaranteeing production quality by ensuring the uniformity of the process,
minimizing the amount of scrap generated, and reducing the time and energy consumption.
Limitations on production by traditional means such as hand lay-up, vacuum bagging, and
in-autoclave methods tend not to be as efficient when the size and shape complexity of the part being
produced increases, motivating the search for alternative processes such as automated tape laying
(ATL). This work aims to describe the process of modelling and simulating a composite ATL with in
situ consolidation by characterizing the machine elements and using the finite differences method in
conjunction with energy balances in order to create a digital twin of the process for further control
design. The modelling approach implemented is able to follow the process dynamics when changes
are made to the heating element and to predict the composite material temperature response, making
it suitable for use as a digital twin of a production process using an ATL machine.
Keywords: automatic fiber laying; thermoplastic composites; process simulation; digital twin
1. Introduction and Related Works
The search for more efficient and automated manufacturing processes for composite
materials has found that the automated tape-laying (ATL) process with in situ consolidation
for thermoplastic laminates is a good alternative for reducing material scrap and increasing
the manufacturability of complex geometries by out-of-autoclave processes [1–4].
This process requires a machine mainly made up of a heating source and a compaction
mechanism in order to raise the composite temperature, guaranteeing the quality of the final
part by ensuring that all the laid composite layers have been welded among themselves [
5
].
The main parameters that affect the quality of the final product are the temperature and
the compaction roll pressure at the nip point [
3
,
6
]. The temperature is the most critical
parameter that must be controlled in order to reduce defects such as voids or delamination.
The heating process is the most critical stage. Reaching the necessary composite
temperature ensures a good bonding condition between the layers [
7
,
8
]. The exposure of
the thermoplastic matrix to inadequate temperatures may cause the degradation of the
material and residual thermal stresses [
2
,
9
–
11
], making the final part defective and unable
to meet the required performance.
Most modelling works focussing on the use of a heating head for the tape-laying
process that can be found in the literature use lasers as heat sources [
12
–
14
] due to their
controlled power delivery at a fixed wavelength and localized region. The position of
the heat source relative to the composite tape is one of the most relevant parameters,
as presented by [
15
], because the heating process depends on optical properties such as
reflectivity for the head assembly, the wavelength absortibity of the heated material, and
surface irregularities.
J. Manuf. Mater. Process. 2022, 6, 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmmp6010008 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/jmmp
