Conceptual Design of an Off-site Industrialization Process for FRP-based Transport Infrastructure Components

摘要

Fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) are used more and more in new construction structural components. Today already first transport infrastructures e.g. road and pedestrian bridges are built out of such components, using mainly manual and not automated manufacturing processes. In order to develop a cost-effective integrated construction process that will enable the maximum capability of automation of components for transport infrastructures using polymer based materials (carbon fiber, glass fiber, etc.) there is a need to industrialize the whole construction process of the FRP components.Hence the main objective is the conception and development of an automated off-site industrialization process for producing modular FRP-based transport infrastructure components. This overall process will cover the whole production process from the procurement of raw materials up to the transport of the produced components, including the facility layout and the management of involved human resources.This leads to the conceptual design of an off-site industrialization process for the most suitable highly flexible and agile production process at a high automation level as well as for coping different sizes and quantities of FRP components.Within this paper different planning activities for the conceptual design of the off-site industrialization process are presented and a detailed description of each planning phase and their associated planning activities is given. To define a conceptual design of the off-site industrialization process, the components that should be produced and the needed manufacturing processes are shortly presented. As a result of this for each component of the bridge, a generic production structure can be assigned and evaluated. Production areas, logistics as well as a rough layout for the factory have been analyzed and finally a variant for the possible final factory layout is presented.