Effect of Tape Feed Parameters on Temperature in Prepreg Tape During Thermoplastic Automated Fiber Placement

Controlling the process parameters during automatetapeplaement with thermoplastic composites is important to ensure proper bonding beteenlayers. The most important parameter is the temperature, which is primarly influenced by the power of the heat source. Secondarily, other parameters, such as laying speed or the tape tension, are also relevant. This paper deals with the temperature changes in the fed tape as a function of the thermal contact to the roller due to tape tension. For this purpose, measurements of the thermal resistance netween thermoplastic tape and silicone material of the roller are made and compared with models from literature. A subsequent numerical investigation of the temperature distribution shows that the tape tension can lead to large temperature differences in front of the nip point, especially at low process speeds.