Stress-Driven Generation of Continuous Fibrous Material Paths for Additive Manufacturing: Numerical Assessment and...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Additive Manufacturing

Background:

• Continuous Fibre-Reinforced Additive Manufacturing (CFAM) allows tailored fibre deposition.
• Material anisotropy is often a limitation but can be exploited for design.
• Aligning fibres with load paths can improve structural performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a methodology for generating continuous fibre trajectories based on principal stress directions in CFAM.
• To exploit material anisotropy as a design opportunity by aligning fibres with structural load paths.
• To improve the structural performance of CFAM components.

Main Methods:

• Combining finite element analysis (FEA) with a path generation procedure.
• Computing principal stress directions and extracting streamlines of the stress field.
• Utilizing a post-processing stage for manufacturable fibre layouts.

Main Results:

• Achieved a global stiffness increase of approximately 20% compared to unidirectional layouts.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of generated trajectories through printing tests.
• Confirmed the generation of physically realizable fibre paths with improved structural performance.

Conclusions:

• The proposed methodology effectively generates continuous fibre paths aligned with stress directions.
• This approach enhances structural performance in CFAM by exploiting material anisotropy.
• The method is validated through simulations and experimental printing tests.