Enabling Automation of Composite Manufacturing through the Use of Off-The-Shelf Solutions

Abstract

Composite materials offer an appealing combination of low weight and high strength that is especially sought after in high-performance applications. The use of composite materials has and is continuing to increase, and the use of the material has been shown to provide substantial weight savings in for example aircraft design. With an increased use of composite materials follows an increased demand for cost-efficient manufacturing methods.Composite products are in many cases manufactured either by manual operations or by the use of complex automated solutions associated with high investment costs. The objective for this research is to explore an approach to develop automated composite manufacturing based on commercially available off-theshelf solutions as an alternative to the existing automated solutions for composite manufacturing.The research, which was carried out in collaboration with industrial partners within the aerospace sector, is based on a demonstrator-centered research approach. Three conceptual demonstrators, focusing on three different manufacturing methods and a number of physical demonstrators, are used to show that off-the-shelf solutions can be used for automated manufacturing of composite products.Two aspects that affect if it is possible to use off-the-shelf solutions for automated composite manufacturing are the rigorous quality standards used by the aerospace industry and the great variety in product properties and material properties that is associated with composite manufacturing.The advantages in using off-the-shelf solutions has shown to be that the solutions generally are associated with low investments and that published information about the solutions, and the solutions themselves, is generally available for evaluation and testing. When working with the demonstrators it has been shown to be useful to break down a manufacturing system into basic tasks and consider off-the-shelf solutions for each particular task. This approach facilitates the search for a suitable off-the-shelf solution to solve a particular task. However, each of the separate tasks can affect other areas of the manufacturing system, and an overall systems perspective is required to find solutions that are compatible with the entire manufacturing system. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introducing New Materials in the Automotive Industry: Managing the Complexity of Introducing New Materials in Existing Production Systems

“…This can be seen in diff erent applications, as academic and industry-based research has covered the design of specifi c components in lightweight materials [3], material selection methodologies [4,5], mass optimization [6] and production development for new materials [7], but there is a research gap when looking at the introduction of new materials in an existing production system. The situation defi ned by introducing new materials in products produced in existing production infrastructure is general, and can be seen in the automotive industry as well as aerospace industry, consumer product industry and others.…”

Low-cost Automation for Prepreg Handling - Two Cases from the Aerospace Industry

“…However, the implementation of these concepts in full scale manufacturing operations seems to be lacking. A key issue to address in order to design automated solutions for handling prepreg materials is to design the systems so that they can handle a great variety of geometrical shapes at the same time as the system remain as uncomplicated as possible [9].…”

Automated layup and forming of prepreg laminates

“…Paper III explores some aspects that affect the ability to use standard, off-the-shelf technology to automate composite manufacturing, and is based on the development of Demonstrator 1 and two other demonstrators that have been omitted from the thesis since they do not cover automated manufacturing processes using prepreg. (More information about the two omitted demonstrators can be found in [6,139,140].) Papers IV and VI compare methods and technologies for automated prepreg layup that were developed in Demonstrators 2 and 3 (Paper IV) and Demonstrators 1-3 (Paper VI).…”

“…Thereafter follows a presentation of the industrial partner's current manufacturing operations, use of automated solutions and expressed views on the future development of automation. Additional descriptions of the industrial partner's manufacturing operations, prerequisites and interests in automated manufacturing can be found in Paper I and in [6,141]. The presentation of the current manufacturing operations also aims to provide a richer context to the environment that the demonstrators are targeted to be implemented in.…”

“…A high level of manual handling of auxiliary materials is also noted in the current manufacturing operations. Additional details on the industrial partner's manufacturing operations can be found in Paper I and in [6,141].…”