ABSTRACT
The quality of thermoplastic composites depends on the thermal history during processing. Therefore it is important to determine the temperature distribution in the composite during the fabrication process. An ABAQUS transient heat transfer finite element model of the thermoplastic filament winding process was developed and used to predict the temperature inside the composite-mandrel assembly. The model relates the material properties, the winding speed, and the hot-gas heater temperature to thermal response of the composite. The results show that the predicted temperature distributions agree well with the temperature data measured during winding and consolidation.
