Inside the head: add, cut, heat, compact
Follow one tow through the head: guides → add rollers (drive it to start) → cutter (stop it) → heat (make it stick) → compaction roller at the nip point (press it down). One geometric fact falls out of that order: after the cutter fires, the tow still has to travel to the roller. So the shortest tow the head can place is the cutter-to-roller distance, the minimum cut length.
Predict · at 1:27 in the video
So here's a puzzle. What's the shortest piece of tow this head can place?
Look at the order of the parts. The cutter sits before the roller. When the cutter fires, the cut end still has to travel that whole distance to reach the roller.
Automated Fiber Placement: Status, Challenges, and Evolution, Ramy Harik & Alex Brasington.
- Chapter 2, section 2.A
- Chapter 2, section 2.B
- Chapter 3
Simulations in this lesson are our own. Where the numbers are invented to show a mechanism, the video says so on screen.
