Technique of constant tension control based on multi-tow prepreg placement

LIU Lin-yin1，SHAO Feng1，YANG Meng2

（1. College of Eletrical Engineering，Zhengzhou College of Science & Technology，Zhengzhou 450064，China；

2. Zhengzhou Huali Information Technology Co., Ltd.，Zhengzhou 450006，China）

Abstract：Aiming at the constant tension control issue of the placement process，the structure，the composition and the application of multi-tow prepreg placement equipment were introduced. A plurality of carbon fiber tow whose width were 3.2 mm was selected as the raw material. After being dipped in glue，the tow was placed between two ends of the mandrel under the coordination of the laying head and the mandrel. Fuzzy self-tuning PID control technology was applied to the system and the double-loop control method have been proposed. The tow was laying automatically in constant tension by the help of the control system which consisted PLC，rotary encoder， tension sensor，FR9，and so on. The experimental results show that，the system not only can achieve the requirements of process' speed and tension requirement，but also solve the influence from large inertia and disturbance. At the same time，it keeps the advantage of fuzzy control's flexibility，and has the characteristic of PID control. The laying process is characterized by stability，no leave seam，reliable work and low failure rate.