Hybrid Manufacturing for Smart Composites Tooling - Manufacturing the future, Materials Engineering - Composites

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The aim of the proposed project is to develop a robust hybrid manufacturing process for the production of smart tooling to be used in the manufacture of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite parts. The project will hybridise additive manufacturing (3D printing), printed electronics and pick and place technologies in a single unattended manufacturing process for the production of composites tools. The project will be undertaken in collaboration with Neotech AMT (http://www.neotech-amt.com) based in Germany, who are a leading supplier of printed electronics systems. The ability to create smart tooling via the embedding of internet-enabled in-process monitoring sensor architectures in key locations of the tool will enable data driven real-time decision-making for composites manufacture as well as improved part traceability, intelligent predictive maintenance of tools and tool life management.[1] All are key aspects in the adoption of so-called Industry 4.0 and Smart Factories.[2-4]At present, CFRP composite parts require expensive metallic tools (moulds) to be produced via conventional manufacturing processes such as CNC machining.[5] Material wastage, cost and lead-time mean that such tools are not cost effective for small volume or legacy production runs. For small volume production runs, cheaper epoxy or polymer composite tools are thus used.[6] Additive Manufacturing offers the possibility to produce cheaper polymer and polymer composite tools via a less labour intensive process but crucially with the added advantage of being able to incorporate features such as embedded sensors. If this were to be achieved today, it would require manual intervention or the use of multiple manufacturing systems, having a negative impact on aspects such as lead-time.If a single process could be created that allowed for production of a robust polymer composite tool but with electronics and sensors embedded inside a tool for monitoring of process parameters during manufacture, the impact could be potentially vast. The UK composites industry alone has the opportunity to grow its current £2.3bn composite product market to £12.bn by 2030.[7] The technical barriers to development of this technology are in the capability of current manufacturing equipment, the limited materials science that has been done and finally the lack of robust models, simulation and design software that would allow subsequent parts to be manufactured effectively. The project will seek to address each of these technical barriers as objectives.The impact from the project will be delivered via academic publications and through development of the technology with Neotech in order to deliver a joint commercial offering.