Four routes to a finished part
A finished layup isn't a part yet. Thermosets must be cured (a one-way chemical reaction); thermoplastics must be consolidated (melted and fused, reversible). Four routes do it: autoclave (heat and pressure, the best quality), oven (heat only, cheaper, less pressure), infusion (dry fibre, resin pulled in under vacuum, for big parts), and in-situ consolidation (thermoplastic, consolidated during placement).
Predict · at 1:12 in the video
Pressure is the big difference. Take an air bubble trapped at one bar, and squeeze it to eight bar. How much smaller does it get across?
Half the diameter. For a gas at the same temperature, volume goes down in proportion to pressure: eight times the pressure, an eighth of the volume. And diameter goes with the cube root of volume.
Automated Fiber Placement: Status, Challenges, and Evolution, Ramy Harik & Alex Brasington.
- Chapter 7, section 1
- Chapter 7, section 1.1.A
- Chapter 7, section 1.4
Simulations in this lesson are our own. Where the numbers are invented to show a mechanism, the video says so on screen.
