Automating the manufacture of composite broadgoods

Buckingham, Rob; Newell, GC

doi:10.1016/1359-835x(96)80001-9

Cited by 36 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…6). This principle has been previously documented by Buckingham and Newell, 16 who used it to construct a robotic system to pick and place reinforcement sheets into molds. Manual folding was used during the layup process to organize developing material excess length (such as in Tasks 7 -9) into manageable fold(s).…”

Section: Organization During Layupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…15 During the design of previous automated systems to pick, place, and consolidate large sheets of prepreg, the skills and capabilities of laminators were explicitly noted, but there was no evidence of direct observations of laminators at work. 16 Similarly, an automated system that deals with sheet prepreg claimed to capture`the mechanics of draping' but fails to directly reference any real layup examples. 17 Another study also failed to explore any existing hand layup techniques while developing a new end effector based on compressed air.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hand layup: understanding the manual process

Elkington¹,

Bloom²,

Ward³

et al. 2015

Advanced Manufacturing: Polymer & Composites Science

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were grouped into eight distinct techniques. Use of these techniques across tasks of different geometry, ramp angles, radii and drape path was identified using video analysis techniques from the ergonomics field. This revealed strong links between specific features and techniques, revealing a systematic approach to layup. This has enabled the first step toward producing a design for manufacture knowledge base surrounding hand layup. This could then be used to inform the development of the layup process, improve training methods and assist in the design of future automated solutions.

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Section: Organization During Layupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hand layup: understanding the manual process

Elkington¹,

Bloom²,

Ward³

et al. 2015

Advanced Manufacturing: Polymer & Composites Science

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“…It has taken the whole community, the author included, far too long to long to understand this. With regard to automation it is really rather surprising how little some of the early work attempting robotic lay-up took account of the practicalities of how the reinforcement was actually applied to the tool by the skilled laminators [13]. Equally, designers of composite parts have not generally taken much account of the difficulties of manufacturing the parts that they design.…”

Section: 2mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘But How Can We Make Something Useful Out of Black String?’ The Development of Carbon Fibre Composites Manufacturing (1965–2015)

Potter

2016

The Structural Integrity of Carbon Fiber Composites

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Abstract.This chapter looks at how the manufacturing community responded to the invention of carbon fibres, the first practical, high-modulus, reinforcement to be available as continuous fibres; largely through the lens of the author's personal experience. Whilst it seems axiomatic to us today that we use continuous fibres, most of the composites applications in 1965 used short fibres, for example chopped glass, asbestos, whiskers or linen fibres. To a large extent the narrative of carbon fibre composites manufacturing is the story of how to manipulate continuous fibres into complex geometries; and how to do that cost-effectively without introducing strength reducing defects. Until very recently, when the manufacturing and structural integrity communities have started to interact much more, there has tended to be an almost complete disconnect between the materials, design and manufacturing worlds. This has been the case as much in industry as it has in academia and seems to have been the norm since the very beginnings of the application of carbon fibre composites. The difficulties inherent in manufacturing geometrically complex parts were identified very early in the history of carbon fibre composites. However, it has proven to be very challenging to go beyond identifying problem issues to actually solving them, and that process is by no means complete. There are signs that the composites community may finally be on the right track, with some recent successes pointing towards research directions where design and manufacturing approaches can be unified to deliver reliable and cost-effective parts -only 50 years after the process started.

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“…Unidirectional (UD) prepreg is highly anisotropic and has a low structural rigidity, and the prepreg tack (i.e. the stickiness of the material) is a major challenge [8,14].…”

Section: Challenges and Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although less expensive than AFP and ATL, implementation of pick and place systems has so far been unsuccessful in industry, and there are no commercially available alternatives to ATL and AFP for automated composite manufacturing [6]. The reason for the lack of industrial implementation has not been sufficiently investigated, but published results in the field of automated prepreg handling indicate that projects aim to automate layup onto contoured molds [7][8][9][10][11]. This, together with Elkington's [12] conclusion that layup of prepreg on a contoured mold is probably too complex to be automated using existing technologies, may indicate that the problem needs to be deconstructed in order to create truly efficient systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%