Development of Drape Simulation Software and the Optimisation of Variable-Length Textiles

Abstract

The group of manufacturing methods known as Liquid Composite Moulding (LCM) is becoming the industry standard for Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) production. These processes are versatile and cost-effective, but they are extremely dependant on the availability of textile preforms offering good quality and consistency. Good quality preforms are realised through well-controlled fibre volume fractions, fibre orientations and thicknesses as well as the absence of defects such as out-of-plane deformations and inter-fibre gaps. Preform quality is largely determined by the draping operation, which may be modeled to better inform the design of PMC components. A draping simulation software was developed in this thesis, which can simulate the draping of textiles onto model surfaces using the kinematic draping algorithm. In addition, the thesis presents a novel textile architecture where yarn spacing lengths in a textile may vary across the textile. These variable-length textiles can be custom-tailored for specific PMC applications, offering advantages over conventional constant-length textiles such as a larger surface area covered by a single piece of textile, lower values of in-plane shear, and controlled fibre orientations. The variable-length textiles can be optimised manually or using algorithms based on Monte Carlo methods which are implemented in the software. The draping simulation software was validated by comparing laboratory trials with drape simulations, and results obtained using generic demonstrators and an industrial component; several optimisation results are presented, demonstrating the advantages associated with variable-length textiles over conventional, constant-length textiles.