Abstract

As the demand of the automotive and aeronautics industry for high-performance structures increases, the tendency goes towards the use of composite materials. This tendency requires designing efficient manufacturing processes to ensure repeatability and quality. Attending those requirements, the Automated Tape Laying process has gained relevance, as an out-of-autoclave process, consuming less energy and lower production times. This process consists of continuously heating a thermoplastic-based composite material and, using a compaction roll, pressing it against a mould, consolidating the structure by cooling down the composite. On the other hand, the Automated Tape Laying process arises a relevant problem related to the control system. The problem is related to the impossibility of measuring the temperature at the nip point, the temperature under the compaction roll, having no feedback then, no control decision. To overcome this type of problem, some authors have implemented a model-based control system, which allows to estimate the temperature at the desired location. To guarantee the best estimation, the model must be as detailed as possible, which leads to the concept of a Digital Twin. The Digital Twin as a detailed mathematical representation of the physical world, requires knowing the behaviour of the process element due to their interaction. This work proposes a thermal characterization methodology, using an in-house designed method, to describe the thermal-optical and thermal-conductivity properties of composite materials as a function of their temperature, which is required for the Digital Twin to compute the temperature distribution along an Automated Tape Laying process to lower the uncertainties due to properties approximations