Owing to their significant advantages in reducing structural weight, high specific strength composite materials are widely used in aerospace products. Accordingly, establishing efficient and effective design and manufacturing methods for such parts has become a key challenge. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. has introduced Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) equipment in Japan and has conducted research on lamination optimization design methods and manufacturing processes. As a result, although strength of AFP laminates decreased by up to approximately 18% under certain specific conditions compared to manual laminates, the lamination optimization design implemented in this study could improve the strength of structures by approximately 20%, thus compensating for the decrease in strength. Furthermore, the use of AFP was shown to reduce the number of steps in the manufacturing process required for manual lamination, thereby improving the manufacturing efficiency.
