A tape sliced into 24 ribbons
Automated fibre placement exists because someone cut a perfectly good tape into narrow strips. A wide tape can't turn a corner: its edges would have to travel different distances. A band of independent tows can, because every tow is fed on its own, pays out its own length, and can be cut and restarted on its own.
Predict · at 2:10 in the video
So picture a band of twenty-four tows turning a corner. Which tow has to feed out the most material?
The outermost one. It's travelling the biggest circle. The innermost tow feeds the least, and every tow in between feeds its own exact length.
Automated Fiber Placement: Status, Challenges, and Evolution, Ramy Harik & Alex Brasington.
- Chapter 1, section 4.B
Simulations in this lesson are our own. Where the numbers are invented to show a mechanism, the video says so on screen.
