JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #122 - July 2018 - 22

MANUFACTURING fibre placement
Dual purpose
But the innovation does not stop here.
Regarding the component, Premium
Aerotec had a specific part in mind to
be built with Fibre Patch Placement: an
operating box cover in the form of a pressure cap with a complex, double-curved
shape and a circumferential flange for
rivets - a geometry so complex that
automating the fibre lay-up was not feasible and manual placement and draping
not economic. In the past, the company
had examined different materials and
processes to build this pressure cap, all
of which resulted in high cost and a too
heavy part.
Cevotec was able to design and manufacture the pressure cap because the Fibre
Patch Placement technology is exactly
dedicated to designing and manufacturing such geometrically challenging
components. FPP lay-ups manage biaxial
curved surfaces as easily as small convex
or concave radii. Additionally, the fibres
can be oriented exactly along the main
stress directions.
The production process requires a
closed virtual product development
chain to generate and optimize the
laminates automatically. During the
laminate generation, the component was
virtually composed of more than 5,000
individual patches. The resulting patch
data is the input for a virtual process simulation, performing an automatic offline
programming of the production cell's
robots, including collision detection.
The resulting machine data program is
transferred to the Samba production
system, which takes over the fully automated production of the laminates.

Major cost and weight savings
Using the left-over material from AFP
with Fibre Patch Placement enabled
more than 90% material utilization of
left-overs and reduced part cost by 75%.
The part's weight is reduced by 70%
compared to previous versions built by
Premium Aerotec. The cost reduction
considers the full price of the AFP material - given that the material would have

22

The operating box
designed by Premium
Aerotec and manufactured by Cevotec

been disposed of otherwise, the cost
reduction is even greater, equalling 88%.
More than 300 AFP and ATL systems are
currently installed worldwide. With an
increase of the material utilization by a
co-installed FPP machine besides every
AFP machine, the material saving of the
installed AFP base becomes very significant, especially considering the high cost
of aeronautic-certified fiber material.
The overall benefit for the industry in
terms of material efficiency is estimated
at EUR 100 million and beyond.

Energy savings and
process evolution
Equally important is the contribution
to the environment in terms of energy
savings in several aspects. Primarily,
energy savings are achieved by less fuel
consumption on aircrafts over the course
of their service life through reduced
weight, which is a positive contribution
to the energy efficiency of air transport.
Extrapolating
FPP-enabled
weight
savings to all relevant parts in aircrafts
results in savings of hundreds of kilos in
total weight. In addition, by repurposing prepreg AFP tape, which includes
carbon fibers and uncured epoxy resin
matrix, the amount of toxic waste can
be significantly reduced, including the
corresponding energy consumption for a
safe disposal.
Also, there are positive contributions to

jec composites magazine / N°122 July 2018

workforce and process: The virtual product development chain and especially the
integrated quality inspection guarantee
a fast product development cycle with
fewer prototypes and less parts rejected
in the production due to quality issues.
Both aspects save further material and
reduce waste.
As Fibre Patch Placement automates the
lay-up of complex parts, it substitutes
manual work steps that include processing uncured prepreg material. Prepreg
is highly irritating on skin contact and
needs to be processed under special
safety conditions, mostly in a cooled
environment. Therefore, the automation
also reduces the amount of hazardous
jobs in an unhealthy environment.
Premium Aerotec and Cevotec successfully demonstrated the potential that
Fibre Patch Placement technology brings
to the aerospace industry for complex
fibre lay-ups.
The project described in this article is
of special relevance as it demonstrates
innovation not only on the component,
but also on the process, effectively combining AFP and FPP to increase material
efficiency, reduce costs and enable new
applications.
More information:
www.cevotec.com
http://www.cevotec.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #122 - July 2018
