3D Thermo-Mechanical Model Based Simulation Of the Welding of Thermoplastic Composite Tape Using Automated Tape Laying (ATL) Process

The present paper describes the current state of works done during the STELLAR project about the ATP simulation. To assess the welding quality of the thermoplastic taps, the computations of the contact pressure, the temperature and the phase evolution in the matrix (evolution the degree of crystallinity) are in first importance. In the present paper, we describes two approaches to solve the 3D thermo-mechanical problem: the first one corresponds to a steady state assumption solved with an implicit scheme and the second one corresponds to the dynamical problem taking into account of the kinematic of the tool, and solved with an explicit scheme.