Abstract: To study the placement suitability of T700 carbon fiber/bismaleimide resin prepreg for complex rotary bodies in Automated Fiber Placement (AFP), the T-type peel strength and drapability of three types of T700 carbon fiber/bismaleimide resin prepreg were tested, and the placement performances on the curvature were compared. In this paper, the effects of the processing parameters (lay-up temperature, lay-up velocity, and lay-up pressure) on the placement quality at different tow steering radii were investigated, and we proposed a new assessment method for placement quality. The comparison of material experiments exhibited that within limits, the placement quality improved significantly with the increase of the stiffness and interlaminar tack, which the latter is more significant. Finally, the T700 carbon fiber/bismaleimide resin prepreg 3 was selected as the placement material for the complex rotary bodies experiment. The process optimization experiment showed that the limit tow steering radius reduced to 1 000 mm,when the lay-up velocity was less than 32 mm/s. Combined with the placement efficiency, the optimal processing parameters for complex rotary bodies are F=800 N, T=40 ℃, v =32 mm/s, and the placement interval is 2 h. The proposed method improves the quality and efficiency of placement, successfully solving engineering application problems.

Key words: Automated Fiber Placement (AFP), T700 carbon fiber/bismaleimide resin prepreg, complex rotary bodies, processing parameters, limit tow steering radius