Technology Route Planning of Large Composite Parts

Abstract

In the current paper optimal design of the manufacturing technology route has been studied. For finding out the optimal technology route of the large composite plastic products the structure of the technology process has to be cut down into different process segments: vacuum forming technology, technology for post-forming operations, strengthening and assembling. The vacuum forming process has been analyzed with different materials like ABS/PMMA, Polycarbonate and Acrylic Plexiglas. In the glass-fiber reinforcement (polyester resin with randomly oriented short glass fibers) process the reinforcement layer thickness has been analyzed and optimized. The Neural Network meta-modeling technique has been used. The optimization of the plastic sheet and its reinforcement layer thickness has been performed using the surrogate design model. The Finite Element Analysis simulation has performed with optimal thickness values to verify the prediction accuracy of the surrogate model. For optimal selection of technology route the corresponding optimization model has been proposed. Model has based on maximization of total profit, where constraints are the workstation time capacities, material availability and optimal technology structure. A neural network approach and MatLab Neural Network Toolbox has been used.