Consolidation-Driven Defect Generation in Thick Composite Parts

Fiber waviness is one of the most significant defects that occurs in composites due to the severe knockdown in mechanical properties that it causes. This paper investigates the mechanisms for the generation of fiber path defects during processing of composites prepreg materials and proposes new predictive numerical models. A key focus of the work was on thick sections, where consolidation of the ply stack leads to out of plane ply movement. This...