The automated manufacture of prepreg broadgoods components — a review of literature

Newell, GC; Buckingham, Rob; Khodabandehloo, K

doi:10.1016/1359-835x(95)00019-x

Cited by 26 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The manufacturing is usually performed in a temperature-controlled environment with temperatures around 20°C. This is not an ideal temperature for the prepreg, but rather chosen for operator comfort [6].…”

Section: Manual Layupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Removal of Prepreg Backing Paper - A Sticky Problem

Björnsson¹,

Lindbäck²,

Johansen³

2013

SAE Technical Paper Series

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Automated solutions for manufacturing composite products based on prepreg often imply Automatic Fiber Placement or Automatic Tape Laying. These systems are generally associated with huge investments. For certain manufacturing applications it is interesting to investigate alternatives to find simpler and less costly automation. One example of an automated system could be the use of a standard industrial robot to pick single prepreg plies from an automated cutting machine and stack them to form a plane laminate. This paper is based on a case illustrating a product from the aircraft manufacturing industry. The case will demonstrate a pick and place concept on a general level and illustrate challenges that must be solved. The challenge selected to be the main focus for this paper is an automated process for backing paper removal. A literature review of different gripping technologies reveals several interesting technologies, and the most promising are tested for backing paper removal. The tests show that an automated removal process can be designed by using standard vacuum grippers in combination with mechanical clamping grippers. In order to lift the backing paper with a vacuum gripper an initial separation between the backing paper and prepreg is needed. This separation is most easily mechanically induced by bending the material. The proposed solution for automatic backing paper removal can be integrated in a manufacturing cell for manufacturing of the studied product.

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Section: Manual Layupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Removal of Prepreg Backing Paper - A Sticky Problem

Björnsson¹,

Lindbäck²,

Johansen³

2013

SAE Technical Paper Series

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“…All the levels in the automation hierarchy are illustrated in Table 4. For composite manufacturing the main advantage with the use of automation is, according to Newell et al (1996), the possibility to increase overall quality and uniform consistency for the products. The layup and consolidation processes benefit significantly from a more repeatable process compared to manual layup .…”

Section: Manufacturing Systems and Automationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Björnsson¹

2014

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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

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“…There are requirements on contamination-free handling, positional accuracy of placed plies, requirements for gap/overlap, fiber angles, wrinkles and other deformations [7,[13][14][15][16][17]. • The systems must be designed to handle a multitude of ply shapes and sizes [14].…”

Section: Challenges and Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%