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Coriolis Composites utilises a standard off-the-shelf poly-articulating robot arm as the basis for a fibre placement system having eight axes of motion.
(Picture courtesy of Coriolis Composites.)
Automating
aerospace composites
production with
fibre placement
As with most automation, advanced fibre placement (AFP) requires
substantial investment, but it has shown its ability to cover its cost
in terms of saved labour and reduced material scrap, combined
with the ability to form laminates of exceptional quality with higher
accuracy and repeatability. George Marsh reports.
32 REINFORCEDplastics MAY/JUNE 2011 0034-3617/11 ©2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
FEATURE
T
o see an automated fibre placement Complex geometries As with most automation, AFP requires
(AFP) system at work, its super- AFP has much in common with ATL but, substantial up-front investment, but it has
articulating head following an item’s while the latter is best suited to plain, shown its ability to cover its cost in terms
complex contour at miraculous speed, is relatively flat surfaces, AFP can be used of saved labour and reduced material scrap-
to wonder how such items could ever with much more complex geometries. This page alone, not to mention its ability to lay
have been laid up by hand. is because it lays narrow tows, which can tows accurately, reliably and repeatably to
be steered over sharply curved surfaces form laminates of exceptional quality.
Even were manual laminators able to lay whereas wider tapes cannot be so placed
plies on complex curvatures with the without buckling some of the fibres and Tows can be laid in any pre-programmed
required fibre orientations and integrity, potentially weakening the laminate. orientations and positions so that
they would not be able to do so repeat- laminate can be tailored to deliver the
ably in series production. Nor would When used with a rotating tool or mandrel, strength and stiffness parameters required
manual fabrication methods support the AFP more closely resembles filament by the designers at various parts of the
production rates now needed by the winding, though use of tows tends to make structure, fibres being aligned with the
manufacturers of aircraft, ground vehicles it a faster process. local forces expected in service. Mate-
and other items for which composites are rial is laid free of tension and folds,
now mainstream. Aircraft maker Boeing, In AFP, a number of prepreg tows or narrow with precisely defined pressure. Heads
for example, plans a production rate for slit tapes are fed to placement heads that lay can carry out all necessary cutting and
its carbon composite B787 widebody them down to form a continuous prepreg re-start operations plus consolidation with
twinjet of 38 per month within a few layer. Advanced machines can lay as many as compaction rollers.
years. 32 tows simultaneously, the tows being fed
from creels located at or near the head.
AFP is one of the automated produc- Control of AFP has
tion technologies that will make this An AFP head can be mounted on a multi-
and similar manufacturing feats possible. axis articulating arm that moves around much in common with
Along with automated tape laying (ATL)
and filament winding, it will be key to
the tool/mandrel, or can be carried by a
gantry. Alternatively, the tool can be rotated
the computer numerical
high-volume production of composite under a static head or both the head and control (CNC) of
items, promising reliable, consistent and the mandrel can move in a ‘dance’ choreo-
cost-effective fabrication. graphed by a software program. machine tools.
Premium AEROTEC manufactures fuselage panels for the Airbus A350 XWB using MAG tape laying machines. (Picture © Premium AEROTEC GmbH.)
A faster future
The future for AFP probably lies with
machines that are considerably faster than
those in use today. Increases in manufac-
tured part size and complexity, together
with the high rates at which the aero-
space industry needs to fabricate those
composite parts, have created the need for
on-the-fly fibre placement at 2000 inches
per minute and more, several times faster
than current-generation machines can
achieve. Such speeds are required to avoid
the need for multiple slower machines
working in parallel. While re-engineering of
systems for feeding, cutting and machinery
control has resulted in machines that Fibre placement machine for carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) aerostructures at Premium AEROTEC’s
plant in Nordenham, Germany. (Picture © Premium AEROTEC.)
can deliver rates of this order, progress
continues and further refinement is likely
to push speeds even higher.
and operators can control the feed rate contracted CGTech to develop a variant of its
Raising the speed bar to these levels places without affecting end cut accuracy. VERICUT suite specifically for its AFP system.
high demands on mechanical systems,
servos, controls and programming systems. A particular challenge the company faced Also in demand is FiberSIM from VISTAGY
A realistic lay-down includes many short was that of on-the-fly cutting. Cutting a Inc. This, and associated modules from
courses (a course is a single pass of the tape that is moving fast through the guide the company’s Aero Suite, are used by a
machine, which can be laying down system requires careful timing of blade number of aerospace contractors including
multiple materials tows or tapes) over sharp and shear edge arrivals so that a ragged Tier 1 suppliers like GKN Aerospace. Recently
contours, and bi-directional lay-down for cut – or worse, failure to sever – are the SOLVER Company of Russia purchased
speed. The machine will continually be avoided. Electroimpact developed a new Vistagy software for use with a VIPER 1200
accelerating and decelerating in multiple guide chute system to secure this, as well fibre placement system.
axes to maintain the surface parameters as high-speed cutter actuation to avoid
required. Within the feed system, spool the blade exerting drag on the moving Electroimpact AFP machines are used,
dynamics are closely controlled with associ- material. Accurately timed cuts are made inter alia, by Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita,
ated ‘dancer’ rollers and pneumatic disc in less than one millisecond. Extremely Kansas, to produce composite fuselage
brakes. High-speed computing is needed to tight integration of the CNC motion nose sections for the Boeing B787. SOLVER
maintain precision in positioning, cut place- control and the timing of cut and add will use the Viper/FiberSIM combination to
ment and timing. commands is achieved. design and manufacture composite parts for
various projects being undertaken by the
American company Electroimpact Inc, Demand for high-precision software program- Voronezh Aircraft Plant (VASO).
self-billed as a world leader in design and ming has led to another trend in AFP/ATL
manufacture of aerospace tooling and circles. There is growing reliance on specialist In summary, AFP is progressively becoming
automation, has developed AFP technology program developers as high placement a highly capable automation platform.
for laying tow at up to 2000 inches per speeds increasingly outrun the capability of Joining ATL and filament winding as the
minute over complex items, whilst allowing control software engineered by AFP machine primary tools for laying down quality
cutting and adding within customer-defined tool vendors. Rigorous programming can composite laminates, it has become a
end placement tolerances. Its system can avoid the end placement errors sometimes standard process for fabricating large
dispense multiple tows or slit films ranging seen with less effective programs. complex carbon-epoxy skins and shells. As
from a quarter inch in high contour areas to such, it is in the process of revolutionising
two inches or wider over lower curvatures. Electroimpact, for one, has taken the the high-volume production of complex
All lay-ups can be performed bidirectionally specialist out-sourcing route, having aerospace structures. ■