**4.7 Automated fibre placement**

Automated fibre placement (AFP) is one of the most advanced methods for fabricating and manufacturing of composite materials as presented in **Figure 11**. This method is used almost exclusively with continuous fibre-reinforced tape. A robot is utilised to place fibre-reinforced tape and build a structure one ply (layer) at a time. A band of material comprised of multiple narrow strips of tape (tows) is placed where these tows are commonly 0.125 and 0.25 inches wide. The use of robotics gives the operator active control over all the processes critical variables, making the process highly controllable and repeatable. This method allows the fabrication of highly customised parts as each ply can be placed at different angles to best carry the required loads [51, 52].

Advantages of fibre placement are processing speed and reduced material scrap and labour costs. Often, the process is utilised to fabricate large thermoset parts with complex shapes. Similar to ATP process, automated tape laying (ATL) is an even speedier automated process in which prepreg tape, rather than single tows, is laid down continuously to form parts.

*Introduction to Composite Materials DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91285*

#### **Figure 11.** *The schematic of the automated fibre placement process.*
