Automated Fiber Placement Machine Selection
For Automated Tape Layup, aPriori selects the lowest-overhead, feasible machine. Overhead, here, is the sum of the machine properties Direct Overhead Rate and Indirect Overhead Rate.
A machine is considered feasible if all the following hold:
• Machine can accommodate the part’s height; that is, part height is no greater than the machine property Max Vertical Travel Distance.
• Machine can accommodate the part’s length; that is, part length is no greater than the machine property Table Length.
• Machine can accommodate the part’s width; that is, part width is no greater than the machine property Table Width.
• Machine spool can accommodate the width of the roll of raw material for each of the part’s materials; that is, the Material Width of part’s widest material is no greater than the machine’s Max Material Width.
• Machine can accommodate the number of active spools; that is,
Number of Active Spools is no greater than the machine property
Total Number of Spools.
• Machine can accommodate the collective width of all the active spools with the part’s widest material; that is, the machine’s
Max Bandwidth is greater than the product of
Number of Active Spools and
Material Width for the part’s widest material.
aPriori selects only from preferred machines, if there is a feasible preferred machine and the cost model variable usePreferredMachines is set to true (the default in starting point VPEs). If there is no feasible preferred machine, or if the cost model variable usePreferredMachines is set to false, aPriori selects from all machines. A machine is preferred if the machine property isPreferred (typically displayed as Is Preferred) is true.