Composite Materials-Fabrication and Automation

This paper discusses the various fabrication techniques and their automation being used in composite material fabrication. Research and development efforts have made some of the structures amenable to computer aided design and numerical control fabrication. About 70% of total cost of Boron and graphite preliminary composites is spent on fabricating into end shapes. Automation could reduce this cost by 50%. Automated processing of tapes has been widely investigated to reduce lay-up costs. One such approach is using automated facilities at the material supplier's plant to handle alternative materials, thus reducing handling in the processor's facility. These concepts include wide tapes [up to 1.2m], uniweave fabric, and fabrics of conventional construction which are unrolled, automatically cut into full or partial plies, sorted into kits, and then laid up onto a tool.
The next step in composite material fabrication is the paperless factory, where automation is being developed and applied in handling, storage and retrieval of frozen materials through automated cutting, kitting and lay up. Assembled parts would be carried automatically to autoclaves for cutting on an overhead monorail or other conveyor.