Feasibility study on the use of automated fiber placement (AFP) for the manufacturing of composite hockey sticks****

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This application concerns itself with a feasibility study for the use of automated fiber placement machine to manufacture hockey sticks designed and made by Bauer Hockey Ltd. The hockey sticks have been made using Hand Lay Up and bladder molding. In the current manufacturing method, layers of composite materials (fiber and matrix) are laid up on a mandrel by hand. This is followed by the use of rubber mandrels to compress the layers of composite against a female mold. Subsequently, heating is applied to cure the resin. While this process has been used for many years it is labour intensive. In order to reduce the cost of manufacturing, the manufacturing has been outsourced overseas. As the market is becoming more competitive, it is necessary to find alternate ways to manufacture the hockey sticks using automation. The advent of automated fiber placement (AFP) machine may provide the answer to this problem. AFP machines can not only produce the composite structures automatically, it also provides fast rate of production, and less variability in the product. AFP machines have been used to make advanced structures such as aircraft bodies by major companies such as Boeing, Aribus, Bell Flight, and Bombardier. The Concordia Center for Composites has an AFP machine that has been used for many projects in collaboration with Bell Flight, and Bombardier. It is intended to use this AFP machine to manufacture the hockey sticks. The challenges for the project involve the small size of the hockey sticks, as compared to the large dimensions of aircraft parts. AFP has been successful in making large aircraft composite structures, but the feasibility of using AFP for making parts of small dimensions such as those of the hockey sticks still needs to be determined. The objective of this project is to study this feasibility. Bauer Hockey Ltd. will collaborate with researchers at Concordia Center for Composites to address this issue. Carbon/epoxy prepregs will be used. The first part of the manufacturing will be done at Concordia using the AFP machine, and the second part of the manufacturing using bladder molding will be done at Bauer Hockey Ltd.**