Automated Fiber placement system lacks the capability for nuances of complex boundary and shape or do they? Here is our second case study, a shoe plate customized for each runner's profile. The innovative approach of placing the Continuous composites plate came from Nike and now have been adopted by HOKA ONE ONE, Brooks Running, and many others. The innovation combined with the agility of compact AFP enables a high degree of energy return resulting in the long run with much less energy.

1. Continuous
Fiber
Composites
Bike
Digitized production
of an e-bike frame
Source: ridley-bikes

2. Common e-bike Frame Designs

3. Basic Frame Shape
Structure
It’s good to have an idea
of the shape and
dimensions your bike will
have and the challenges
of using AFP for
manufacturing a frame
before beginning to plan.

4. Challenges with Continuous Fiber AFP
Challenges
Due to the nature of
rolling and pressing done
by an AFP tool and its
design, there are
limitations that prevent
usage of the AFP
process, such as:
● Complex surfaces
● Tight corners
● Inaccessible areas
Complex
Tight
Inaccessible

5. 3D Printing Approach and Learnings for AFP
Learning
Continuous carbon fiber
3D printed bike frames
with complex geometry
are already a proven
concept. The main
learning curve will be
how to translate this
process for
manufacturing with AFP.
Source: Arevo
Source: Moi Composites

6. Let’s Simplify
Semi-planar
A layer by layer approach
helps in eliminating tight
corners and enables
Out-of-Autoclave unibody
manufacturing. The final
finishing processes of the
final part is still done
separately.

7. Mold
Mold
Make a mold that can
help you cover the laying
area and provide extra
space for any over
molding purposes!

8. Fiber Placement Planning
Plan
Plan how you want to
place fibers. In this case,
we wanted to place long
and continuous narrow
tapes of ⅛’’ width CF
thermoplastic tapes, that
allows for sharp steering
angles

9. Digitized simulation
With the proposed
approach, we could
estimate the time for
placing CF tape for each
frame and predict
material usage. Due to
the planar nature of the
placement, the thermal
profile stays constant!
Fiber Placement Simulation with AddPath
AddPath

10. Simulated Final Layup
Conclusion
The planar approach of
placing fibers enables the
creation of complex
unibody shapes usually
consisting of many
individual components.
The key benefit is in-situ
consolidation resulting
high fiber volume fraction
and very low voids

11. Opportunity
Enables digitized manufacturing of
large structural parts with a high
strength to weight ratio, creating
maximum performance
max
performance