METHODS AND SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING FIBER PLACEMENT START LOCATIONS FOR MANUFACTURING A LAMINATED COMPOSITE COMPONENT

The present disclosure is directed to methods and system for determining fiber placement start locations for manufacturing a laminated composite component. The method includes one or more processors accessing a computer geometric model of the laminated composite component, which includes various characteristics of the component that will be generated. Then, the processors break individual plies of the model into different groups. For each of the groups of plies, stagger requirements are determined and an algorithm (e.g., an integer optimization algorithm or other method described herein) for resolving the stagger requirements is executed. A three dimensional fiber placement start location for each ply in the group is then calculated based on the output from the executed algorithm, a reference curve determined on a definition surface, and a geodesic curve on the surface that is normal to the definition surface.