Bottom-up manufacturing cost optimisation of composite aircraft structures: Manual layup vs. automated layup

Abstract

This paper presents a novel methodology for the bottom-up manufacturing cost optimisation of composite aircraft structures for Automated Fibre Placement (AFP) techniques. The proposed bottom-up approach divides the manufacturing process into many individual activities, making it applicable to a wide range of composite aircraft structures. This approach also splits the costs into material, tool, machine, labour, and indirect costs, enabling the precise cost analysis of these structures. A numerical example, featuring a mono-stiffener composite panel, is investigated. The manufacturing cost of manual layup is compared against that of automated layup. Results indicate that manual layup is superior, in terms of cost, for the manufacture of the mono-stiffener composite panel, and that the safety of the panel can be significantly improved with only a small 5% increase in manufacturing costs.