Tow width, steering limits, offsets
Three numbers the planner sets decide how well courses fit the surface and each other. Tow width (times the number of tows) sets course width: wider is faster but conforms worse, and the penalty grows with the square of the width. The minimum steering radius grows with width too, and checking it only at the course centreline hides the inner tow.
Predict · at 2:59 in the video
Your tows measure six point five millimetres. The software still thinks six point three five. Sixteen tows per course. What happens at every seam?
Each course comes out two point four millimetres wider than planned. So every seam overlaps by two point four millimetres, a strip of double thickness, across the whole ply. The first fix is the one we saw: enter the measured width.
Automated Fiber Placement: Status, Challenges, and Evolution, Ramy Harik & Alex Brasington.
- Chapter 4, section 2.4
- Chapter 4, section 2.5
- Chapter 4, section 2.6
Simulations in this lesson are our own. Where the numbers are invented to show a mechanism, the video says so on screen.
