Morphology-informed tow-wise modelling of AFP-manufactured pseudo-woven laminates

The high-precision fibre tow deposition capability of Automated Fibre Placement (AFP) has enabled fabrication of tailored meso-structural composite architectures, termed as Meso Architected Composites (MAC). These engineered configurations involve fibre tow traversal between adjacent plies, forming pseudo-woven geometries that have demonstrated enhanced impact resistance. However, comprehensive characterisation of their in-plane mechanical behaviour remains limited. Furthermore, conventional ply-wise modelling strategies are inadequate for numerically representing these architectures, necessitating a morphology-informed tow-level modelling framework as presented in this work for accurately predicting their mechanical behaviour. This study presents the first systematic characterisation attempt for investigating the internal meso-structural features in three distinct AFP-manufactured MAC configurations with varying inter-tow spacing. The characterised morphological features are subsequently incorporated into an efficient parametric geometric description for tow-wise numerical modelling. Experimental tensile characterisation of the manufactured MAC configurations indicates less than 5% degradation in tensile strength for the low-gap configurations relative to a conventional non-woven laminate. This behaviour is attributed to pronounced tow spreading at tow junctions during consolidation, resulting in minimal fibre undulation angles. The proposed morphology-informed numerical modelling approach accurately captures the tensile response of the MAC configurations, predicting the tensile strength within a 5% margin, while providing consistent insight into the associated damage mechanisms at the tow-level. This high-fidelity modelling capability not only deepens the understanding of mechanical behaviour of currently characterised MAC configurations but also establishes a foundation for the rapid performance prediction of a wide range of potential configurations enabled by this tow placement strategy. • Automated manufacturing of meso-architected laminates with varied inter-tow spacing • Systematic morphology characterisation-enabled efficient geometric representation • Scalable meso-scale models enabling tow-level prediction of damage response • Experimental validation verifying structural viability of meso-architected laminate