A prototype research laboratory for automated fabrication of high performance composites

摘要

A new NASA fiber placement facility has proven to be a valuable asset for obtaining data, experience, and insights into the automated fabrication of high performance composites. The facility consists of two automated devices: an ABB robot armed with a modified heated head capable of hot gas and focused infrared heating and a 7' × 17' gantry containing a feeder head, rotating platform, focused infrared lamp and e-beam gun. While uncured thermoset tow and tape, e.g., epoxy and cyanate prepreg, can be placed with the ABB robot, its most powerful attribute is the ability to place thermoplastic material to net shape. In recent years, ribbonizing techniques have been developed to make high quality thermoplastic and thermoset dry material forms to the standards required for robotic placement. A variety of composites have been fabricated from these ribbons by heated head tow and tape placement including both flat plates and cylinders. Property values of the former were between 85 and 100 percent of those obtained by hand lay-up/autoclave processing. The relatively small but compact gantry was built for NASA by Boeing and is a recent addition to the NASA Langley laboratory capability. It has full computer control and been used to fabricate e-beam-cured composites using in situ (ply-by-ply, cure-on-the-fly) processing. Future work is directed toward screening new materials and tailoring these two automated devices to develop processes to fabricate net shape composites by non-autoclave techniques.