News: AMRC to experiment with "string" manufacturing
The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing in Rotherham has secured £50,000 to carry out experimental work in composites manufacturing.
Based on the Advanced Manufacturing Park, the AMRC has a £4.5m state-of-the-art centre supporting the development of advanced composite materials inside the Factory of the Future. The centre works with complex hybrid components and systems, which require manufacturing expertise in both composite and metallic structures.
Complex and finely detailed fibre-placed structures are being developed for aerospace manufacturing and are playing a major part in weight reduction. Boeing's 787 Dreamliner has an airframe (the fuselage, wings and undercarriage) where nearly half is made up of carbon fibre reinforced plastic and other composites.
The new funding is from the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites (CIMComp) and will be used to carry out a feasibility study into the monitoring of automated composites manufacturing in-situ in a project called "string manufacturing."
Carbon fibre composite materials are increasingly used in aerospace, marine, automotive and other high-value industries for their combination of light weight and high strength. But they also present a host of manufacturing challenges.
Due to the cutting-edge manufacturing techniques used in composite manufacturing, defects in complex composite structures may only become noticeable after the manufacturing process is complete. The current quality control methods are used only once the full structure is solidified. At that stage, if the damage is detected, the whole component needs to be rejected as the material is beyond the state of repair, leading to high production costs and waste.
The new research, led by Professor Keith Worden with Elizabeth Cross at the university's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor Alma Hodzic at the AMRC, is hoping to develop a structural health monitoring technique that can be carried out during the manufacturing process.
Experimental work will be carried out in the world-class facility of the AMRC with Boeing using an Automated Tape Placement (ATP) robot from Automated Dynamics. The system uses an automated "lay-up" process of layering composite fibres and adhesive onto the surface of a mould and is capable of producing new kinds of fibre-placed structures which are complex and finely detailed than those in current aerospace manufacturing.
The structures will be monitored as they are being created by applying a system of acoustic signals through the mould supporting the manufactured piece.
The research documents state that: "This approach to automated composites manufacturing will revolutionise the current industrial practices, potentially halve the production time, remove the need for post-processing inspection, and by nature become applicable to all advanced manufacturing methods and composite systems.
"This approach will create an enormous impact in the aviation industry, where the speed of manufacturing of novel composite airplanes (Boeing 787 and Airbus 350) depends entirely on the currently used composite manufacturing practices and the ability to assess the structural integrity of the system, carried out after the production."
AMRC website
Images: AMRC
Based on the Advanced Manufacturing Park, the AMRC has a £4.5m state-of-the-art centre supporting the development of advanced composite materials inside the Factory of the Future. The centre works with complex hybrid components and systems, which require manufacturing expertise in both composite and metallic structures.
Complex and finely detailed fibre-placed structures are being developed for aerospace manufacturing and are playing a major part in weight reduction. Boeing's 787 Dreamliner has an airframe (the fuselage, wings and undercarriage) where nearly half is made up of carbon fibre reinforced plastic and other composites.
The new funding is from the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites (CIMComp) and will be used to carry out a feasibility study into the monitoring of automated composites manufacturing in-situ in a project called "string manufacturing."
Carbon fibre composite materials are increasingly used in aerospace, marine, automotive and other high-value industries for their combination of light weight and high strength. But they also present a host of manufacturing challenges.
Due to the cutting-edge manufacturing techniques used in composite manufacturing, defects in complex composite structures may only become noticeable after the manufacturing process is complete. The current quality control methods are used only once the full structure is solidified. At that stage, if the damage is detected, the whole component needs to be rejected as the material is beyond the state of repair, leading to high production costs and waste.
The new research, led by Professor Keith Worden with Elizabeth Cross at the university's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor Alma Hodzic at the AMRC, is hoping to develop a structural health monitoring technique that can be carried out during the manufacturing process.
Experimental work will be carried out in the world-class facility of the AMRC with Boeing using an Automated Tape Placement (ATP) robot from Automated Dynamics. The system uses an automated "lay-up" process of layering composite fibres and adhesive onto the surface of a mould and is capable of producing new kinds of fibre-placed structures which are complex and finely detailed than those in current aerospace manufacturing.
The structures will be monitored as they are being created by applying a system of acoustic signals through the mould supporting the manufactured piece.
The research documents state that: "This approach to automated composites manufacturing will revolutionise the current industrial practices, potentially halve the production time, remove the need for post-processing inspection, and by nature become applicable to all advanced manufacturing methods and composite systems.
"This approach will create an enormous impact in the aviation industry, where the speed of manufacturing of novel composite airplanes (Boeing 787 and Airbus 350) depends entirely on the currently used composite manufacturing practices and the ability to assess the structural integrity of the system, carried out after the production."
AMRC website
Images: AMRC
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