Effect of process parameters on polyamide-6 carbon fibre prepreg laminated by IR-assisted automated fibre placement

Automated fibre placement (AFP) is an advanced manufacturing process with a built-in heat and pressure system, an effective method for in situ consolidation of composite parts. In the present study, carbon fibre PA-6 prepregs were laminated by an IR-assisted AFP system, and the effect of process parameters on the resulting part quality was studied. Of the six fundamental process parameters, two parameters, i.e., laying speed and IR power were identified to be critical. Hence, the current study is focussed on the optimization of these two parameters while keeping the others constant. Three different combinations of IR power and laying speed were deduced to be optimised parameters for the material system used. In general, the laying speed should be increased along with the appropriate increase in IR power. Through visual and microstructural inspection, the laminate manufactured with these optimised parameters were found to have fewer defects and better consolidation when compared with samples manufactured with unoptimised combinations.