Continuous fiber rearrangements during the molding of fiber composites. II. Flat cloth to a rounded cone

Abstract This report is the second in a series in which we attempt to develop rapid computational procedures for determining the rearrangement of continuous fibers that occurs during the molding of fiber composite components from flat precursors. This report considers the shaping of a balanced cloth into a cone with a rounded top. The numerical procedure developed predicts that a cloth can be shaped into rounded cones with all but the smallest cone angles without wrinkling. The predictions are compared with experiment for a particular cone angle, and various parameters connected with the shaping calculation are discussed.