Application of Transmission-Based Solutions for Automated Manufacturing of Thermoplastic Hybrid Sandwich Structures

Abstract

One important goal of the activities in the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 639) is to obtain a scientific understanding of open technological questions for the processing of textile-thermoplastic composites. The variety of novel thermoplastic hybrid yarn textiles, like knitted and woven spacer fabrics as well as sewed spacer preforms, requires individually adapted process technologies. Therefore, a special mold system with integrated consolidation kinematics was designed which allows short cycle times in combination with a material adapted process. For the molding of different sandwich cross section contours a modular kinematic construction kit was developed. An automated assembly and demolding process necessitates a defined alignment of the kinematic components to each other using an adapted handling system. Especially the manufacturing of single curved sandwich structures requires innovative solutions which facilitate the orientation of the consolidation tools with a slight drive effort. In this paper a special focus is on the development of a novel comb system based on a scissor mechanism with reduced number of parts.