The digital thread
Inspection data on its own is weak. With the defect's type and location on the part, and with the process data recorded at the same spot (heat, speed, compaction, curvature), it becomes a digital thread: a layered, queryable history of how the part was made and what condition it's in. That turns inspection into decisions, root causes into process fixes, and gives the customer the full part history.
Predict · at 1:37 in the video
Gaps keep appearing in the same area, part after part. With a digital thread, how would you find out why?
Ask it. Pull every point where a gap was found, and look at the other layers at those same points. In this made-up example, the gaps cluster where the surface is tightly curved and the heat was low.
Automated Fiber Placement: Status, Challenges, and Evolution, Ramy Harik & Alex Brasington.
- Chapter 6, section 4.A
- Chapter 6, 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.