The one exception to the early, less-automated preforming technologies was Fiberforge’s Relay system (supplied by Dieffenbacher), which used a modified form of automated tape laying (ATL) to build up tailored blanks from unidirectional-reinforced thermoplastic tape, which were then molded into parts. The robotized preform cell can build preforms from dry fabrics or prepreg. It features intelligent automation and improved stacking, using a robot with special grippers to pick, place and fold plies into 3D geometry and then perform hot debulking with an integrated camera control system for ensuring quality, repeatability and accuracy. (Dallas, TX, US) won the ACE Equipment and Tooling Innovation Award at CAMX 2016 with an automated cell that can produce 3D preforms from dry fiber or prepreg. Recently, aerospace manufacturers have sought to automate this preforming method and Composite Alliance Corp. Parts made using this method, albeit with the manual layup, include a helicopter roof and 7.4 m long outboard flap for the Airbus A320 aircraft. In addition to dry bindered fabrics, stacked pregreg can also be used as an RTM preform via the Same Qualified Resin Transfer Molding (SQRTM) process developed by Radius Engineering (Salt Lake City, UT). SOURCE: CW, Sara Black.ĭuring the early 2000s, stacked fabrics were used as preforms for RTM, but these were mostly assembled by hand for aerospace applications. There will be a blog later in this series about an adaptation of directed fiber and fiber deposition preforming for both carbon fiber and increased automation.Ī six-axis robot at Sotira Composites sprays chopped fiber and binder onto a screen to produce preforms for RTM automotive parts. The preform was consolidated using heat to melt the binder and then molded using RTM. A robotic arm sprayed chopped glass fiber and binder (3-5 percent by weight) onto a part-shaped screen through which vacuum was applied. The Programmable Powdered Preforming Process (P4) technology was originally developed by Owens Corning Composite Solutions (Battice, Belgium) and Aplicator System AB (Molnlycke, Sweden). By 2008, it had partnered with Sotira Composites (Saint Méloir des Ondes, France) to make 50,000 parts per year for Aston Martin's DB9 coupe, DB9 Volante, V8 Vantage and V8 Roadster models. ![]() Ford actually worked on chopped-fiber preforming in the 1990s. Straight and curved profiles up to 24 m long with no wrinklesįrom 2005-2009, automated preforming consisted mainly of 3D textiles for aerospace applications and directed fiber preforming for resin transfer molding (RTM) of automotive and transportation parts. (e.g., 13 patches of 1.5-, 2- and 3-mm thick organosheet and UD tape with fittings integrated)Ĭontinuous roll-forming for profiles: Straight, ≤10 plies at 400 mm/s Up to 490 kg/hr and 4m 2 parts up to 5 m/s for thermoplastic tapesġ0-15 seconds per layer for parts up to 4 m 2 New Dieffenbacher Fiberforge Relay System According to Thomas Dobiasch, head of sales for Compositence (Leonberg, Germany), “We have also demonstrated with BMW that we can preform 3.5 million parts per year with an output of 250-kg per hour on one machine.”įour 1.25 m × 0.75 m preforms in 60 econdsġ00,000 B-pillars/yr from one machine up to 40 m/min (≈670 m/s) ![]() In fact, production of 100,00-500,000 parts per year is just the beginning. Today, there are multiple technologies and players that claim the ability to produce high-quality, continuous fiber preforms in 90, 60 and 40 seconds. The target for preforming was to match the 1- and 2-minute molding cycle times, which-according to a 2015 presentation by automotive supplier Faurecia (Nanterre, France)-enable 1,000 and 500 parts per day, respectively, for mass production of 200,000 and 100,000 parts per year. “Right now, molding is not the time-critical part of the process,” said Matthias Mayr, head of project management at Engel Austria’s (Schwertberg) Center for Lightweight Composite Technologies. In my 2015 article, preforming was seen as a bottleneck, with cutting, positioning and forming of fabric layers taking much longer than the molding cycle.
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