Analysis of the Diaphragm Forming of Continuous Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastics

Abstract

This paper presents a computational procedure for the analysis of the diaphragm forming of thermoplastic composite materials. The objective of the analysis is to simulate the diaphragm forming process and predict the resulting fiber orientation and transverse thickness distribution. A computational algonthm of the procedure is presented along with a description of each submodel in the analysis. Predictions are presented for the resulting thickness distributions and fiber orientations for a series of circular disk geometries.