Automated Fiber Laying Cassette for Composite Preforms

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current methods for producing composite materials like carbon fiber reinforced epoxy resins (CFRP) in aircraft construction are labor-intensive, inaccurate, and costly, limiting their use in mass production due to challenges in automating the production of preforms with complex geometries and achieving precise reinforcement profiles.

Innovation Solution

A device using a cartridge arrangement with roller conveyors to rapidly lay and drape multiaxial laid fiber fabrics on a core, allowing for fully automated production of curved preforms with high precision and reproducibility, enabling the creation of complex profiles like stringer profiles and annular former segments for aircraft fuselage structures.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If manual laying and draping techniques are used to produce preforms with complex geometries, then flexibility in handling and adapting to various surface geometries is improved, but manufacturing precision and productivity deteriorate due to high proportion of manual labour and resulting inaccuracies

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveadaptability to various surface geometriesVSAvoiddimensional accuracy

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSManufacturing precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces manual mechanical laying and draping operations with an automated robotic system. A robot arm equipped with a laying head automatically positions and deposits fiber reinforcement material onto a mold, eliminating manual labor while maintaining the ability to adapt to complex geometries through programmable motion paths and control systems.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Solution Approach 2:

The system incorporates automatic fiber cutting, positioning, and placement capabilities that operate autonomously. The laying head automatically adjusts fiber orientation, cuts fibers to precise lengths, and deposits them in the correct positions without continuous manual intervention, enabling self-service operation with high precision.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

2Manufacturing precision

If automated TFP laying process is used to produce preforms, then manufacturing precision and automation extent are improved, but productivity deteriorates due to extremely time-consuming sequential laying of narrow strands

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveprecision of fiber placementVSAvoidproduction speed

Core Design Contradiction:

Manufacturing precisionVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of laying narrow strands sequentially, the invention uses a broad laying head that deposits wide bands of fiber reinforcement material in parallel. This segments the deposition process into multiple simultaneous deposition zones across the width of the mold, dramatically reducing the number of passes required while maintaining precise fiber placement control.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables continuous deposition of fiber reinforcement material across the entire mold width in a single sweeping motion. The laying head moves continuously along the mold surface while depositing material, eliminating the stop-and-go sequential strand laying process and achieving uninterrupted production flow.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #20Continuity of useful action

3Productivity

If winding process is used to produce preforms, then productivity and automation extent are improved, but adaptability deteriorates due to limitation to rotationally symmetric geometries only

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveautomation efficiencyVSAvoidrange of achievable surface geometries

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The system employs a dynamically controllable robotic laying head that can adjust its position, orientation, and deposition parameters in real-time. The robot arm provides six degrees of freedom, enabling adaptation to any mold geometry while maintaining automated high-speed operation, unlike fixed winding mechanisms limited to rotational symmetry.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The robotic laying system serves as a universal platform capable of producing preforms with any surface geometry. By programming different motion paths and deposition patterns, the same system can handle planar, curved, complex, and irregular geometries, replacing multiple specialized winding machines with a single multi-functional device.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS9399325B2Method and device for laying and draping portions of a reinforcing fiber structure to produce a profiled preform

Publication Date: 2016.07.26 AIRBUS OPERATIONS GMBH

AI summary

A device for automatically laying and draping a plurality of web-form portions of a dry sheet-like formation, in particular of a multiaxial laid fiber fabric and/or a woven reinforcing fabric to create a profiled preform on a core by repeated laying and draping of the portions in order to produce a reinforcing profile with a composite material. Accordingly at least one portion, is kept in at least one cassette between two roller conveyors ready for laying on the core. As a result of the preferably simultaneous laying of preferably more than one prefabricated portion of the sheet-like formation on the core by means of at least one cassette of the cassette arrangement a profiled preform can be fully automatically laid and draped quickly and with great dimensional accuracy and at the same time with good reproducibility for the production of CRP profiles.