Abstract
The manufacturing of large-scale structural components is still dominated by manual labor in many sectors of the modern composite industry. Efforts are being made to establish an automated layup technology for complex structural elements. Processing dry non-crimp fiber fabrics (NCF) offers great cost opportunities and high deposition rates, compared to prepreg-based technologies like automated fiber placement (AFP). Here, the fabric architecture is considered during the draping of the plane textile on curved surfaces. In this paper, the development of a draping unit for balancing fabric tension and consolidating continuously across the layup width is presented. We introduce a geometrical process model to achieve a fabric-friendly draping of the used unidirectional NCF. The shape of the resulting draping front depends on the surface geometry, the shearing of the previously laid-up textile, and the positioning of the material feed. To consolidate the fabric at the altering draping front in an automated layup process, the shape of the continuous consolidation element can be controlled by the elongation of serial soft actuators, manipulated by parallel robot kinematics. The shape replication ability of the draping unit is promising for the implementation of a continuous, fabric-friendly draping process for complex surface geometries.
Highlights
The adaption of the structural design to loading conditions can significantly improve the weight-saving efficiency by utilizing anisotropic material properties of carbon-fiberreinforced plastics (CFRP) and unconventional design concepts [1]
A “pin-eye”-model of the loose woven unidirectional non-crimp fabric was implemented into the kinematic draping simulation
The investigation of the experimental draping results showed high conformity between the fabric behavior and draping simulations based on the “pin-eye”-model
Summary
The adaption of the structural design to loading conditions can significantly improve the weight-saving efficiency by utilizing anisotropic material properties of carbon-fiberreinforced plastics (CFRP) and unconventional design concepts [1]. While simultaneously improving the load-dependent design and the production process in terms of assembly time and automation level, integral stiffening structures for aircraft fuselage with intersecting double-curved profiles (Figure 1a) are suggested. Draping form-giving foam cores with pre-impregnated carbon textiles to the pre-laid fuselage skin enables a co-curing process and greatly minimizes assembly work. Laying technologies have been established to automate the production of laminate structures. Automated tape laying (ATL) and automated fiber placement (AFP) are the most widespread in industrial applications. While modern AFP-systems are capable of laying double-curved structures, they do not reach the output of ATL-systems [2].
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