Composites UK held its ‘Innovation in Composites Manufacturing’ forum presentation session during the Advanced Engineering Show at the NEC, Birmingham on 31st October, with four of the industry’s leading protagonists taking to the lectern to educate visitors to the event.
Hosted by Composites in Manufacturing’s editor, Mike Richardson at the Composites Forum, each speaker took their turn to explain the latest developments designed to increase composite production, and reduce both waste and cost from the process.
Netzsch Analysing & Testing’s Dr Alexander Chaloupka kicked off proceedings with his presentation ‘In-mould Process Analytics - the Next Step for Intelligent and Robust Composite Manufacturing’.
“Process automation involves intelligent manufacturing and having dynamic manufacturing processes,” he stated. “Netzsch can provide newly-developed dielectric sensor technology with a ceramic coating that enables the user to get in touch directly with carbon fibres. We now have the chance to characterise more or less, every thermal property of a material during manufacturing and use the sensor to evaluate in-mould quality assurance and determine the specific quality criteria during manufacturing. This allows us to control the process so that both sensor and machine tool can communicate back and forth.
“The main focus of our sensor technology is to lower the cost, avoid producing waste and save as much time as possible. There is an industry demand for in-mould quality assurance that avoids the post-process quality assurance to help save money. It’s all about maximising quality, lower cycle time with maximum safety.”
Next up, CCP Gransden’s engineering manager, Peter Quigley covered the topic of ‘Single stage overmoulding of thermoplastic composites’.
“We are looking to combine thermoforming processes with injection moulding in a single step,” stated Quigley. “There are some really good opportunities for these capabilities within the aerospace and automotive sectors because it offers a stable process - no matter what material combinations it is used on when using the same polymer system. It helps to bring together the whole philosophy of automation, speed of manufacture and statistical process control, which allows us to take the material and the process and really get the benefits out of the product.”
An invention that will help trains the composites engineers of tomorrow was unveiled by Dr Denis Crowley of the University of Bristol. Called ‘LayupRITE’, the innovation provides augmented reality training for hand layup of prepreg.
“The aim of LayupRITE is to help overcome the challenges of training and satisfy the need for more skilled production people, because the production methods we use now are basically not smart enough,” he said. “In partnership with the National Composites Centre, we are working on a research project to leverage all of the University of Bristol’s background knowledge connected with drape simulation, improving the ergonomics involved and how people approach the layup of prepreg. We want to deliver this onto the shopfloor using projected augmented reality (AI) and devising a method of tracking the layup process, so that it maintains the same digital thread - all in a neat package.”
The final presentation, ‘Heating of Composites using humm3 Technology’ by Heraeus Noblelight’s composites consultant, Dr David Williams, offered visitors to the show the opportunity to hear about the latest developments of the company’s humm3 technology for composites.
“Our latest developments concern the work performed on dry fibre materials and thermoplastics, showing how we developed the technology from just an R&D tool and then a demonstrator, right through to a commercial product now selling humm3 around the world,” Williams revealed. “We are demonstrating how humm3 Technology can provide a viable alternative to laser processes. It is more health & safety conscious than using a laser, yet can still run the high temperature materials which the industry seems to be demanding going towards.
“We’ve introduced some new applications too, such as filament winding, i.e. making pipes and pressure vessels from thermoplastic materials. We believe we have a viable heat source for their production. Some companies are looking at broad goods and ways to ‘stake’ or stitch together large area preforms, so that it can be done in one step. We think we have a viable way of doing this using our Quartz guidance block as both a pressure and heat source.”
Composites UK says the sessions were designed to align with the UK Composites strategy and highlight the opportunities and challenges for the industry.
www.netzsch-thermal-analysis.com
