Autoclave Facility Upgrade for Advanced Applications

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The Composites Research Network (CRN) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) is in urgent need of an upgrade to our autoclave facility.******Autoclaves are pressure vessels used in industry (eg., aerospace) to "cook" composites structures and create parts. The autoclave is a mission critical piece of equipment in the CRN and is being used to (i) collect data to demonstrate digital twinning and its applications; (ii) study the effect of tooling and airflow on the thermal response of composite parts during autoclave processing; (iii) develop a simulation based thermal profiling workflow to support industry decision makers to better design autoclave manufacturing plans; (iv) study the cure path dependence of aerospace autoclave manufactured carbon fibre composite material; and (v) study the effects of autoclave convective behaviour on curing of advanced composites. Our programs focus on knowledge based solutions for real industrial problems, enabling companies to decrease both their production and scale up costs in the process.******The existing autoclave is in desperate need of upgrading the controller as well as outdated hardware and software. Currently, these problems result in significant downtime of this equipment, resulting in delays in productivity, which also negatively impact HQP training and career progression. UBC does not have a comparable industrial autoclave on either the Point Grey or Kelowna campuses. The current projects at CRN are industrially relevant and critical to the advanced manufacturing industry.******CRN has trained a large number of HQPs and continues to have undergraduate and graduate trainees, as well as postdoctoral fellows in the group. The invaluable experience these trainees get in using tools and operating equipment (eg., autoclave) that are essential in advanced manufacturing industries, makes them an asset to any SME or OEM working with composites.