Automatic Composite Sandwich Placement System
Cevotec, together with GKN Aerospace Deutschland GmbH, TUM - Carbon Composites Department, SGL Carbon, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, launched a pioneering research and development project under the founding authority: full automation of sandwich structure production.
Ongoing efforts to reduce emissions in the aerospace industry have led to widespread adoption of composite materials and sandwich structures. This is an important driving force for new process developments and component certifications. Composite materials, particularly sandwich structures, offer very specific benefits.
However, to date they remain largely dependent on manual labor and subsequent numerous inspection steps to ensure compliance with strict quality specifications. Cevotec is seeking to make the production of these components more economical, more efficient and better controlled by developing an automated Fiber Patch Placement (FPP) placement process with advanced online inspection capabilities.
[caption id="attachment_128714" align="aligncenter"] MAI ACoSaLUS – Automated Composite Sandwich Placement System[/caption]Cevotec CEO Thorsten Groene said, "FPP technology is unique in its ability to place fibers on composite curved surfaces and we want to extend this to the automatic placement of complete sandwich components including core materials." The key project objectives are to increase the net laying speed 7 to 10 times to 15 m²/hour and reduce the amount of manual labor required by up to 100%.
Cevotec's work encompasses both software and hardware developments. The first development area is further advancement of the patch placement process. Richard Carle, ACoSaLUS Project Leader at Cevotec, explains: "We will implement an active force feedback function on the robot integrated into our system to meet optimum compression forces during the placement operation and at the same time further develop our proprietary gripper technology."
Together with Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, Cevotec is working on optimization of placement planning and simulation algorithms to reduce total cycle time per component and further improve the quality of mechanical strength predictions.
To ensure that produced components comply with the strict production specifications required by aerospace and space customers and first-tier suppliers, Cevotec will develop a vision system to inspect the first and second skin laminates during the placement operation. This will be carried out in close cooperation with GKN Aerospace GmbH and VisCheck GmbH.
New prepreg formulations developed by SGL Carbon will be tested during the project to optimize their use in Cevotec systems. Additionally, an adhesive-based application technology will be developed for newly developed vacuum aids by Vabatec GmbH.
By the end of the project in 2023, Cevotec aims to increase the net laying speed of relevant components 7 to 10 times and develop a fully automated placement process for sandwich parts using Fiber Patch Placement technology that includes advanced online inspection routines and self-adapting process control, advanced placement routines and automatic core handling.
