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

拟议项目的目的是开发一种强大的混合制造工艺，用于生产用于制造碳纤维增强聚合物(CFRP)复合材料部件的智能工具。该项目将混合添加剂制造(3D打印)、打印电子技术，并在单一的无人值守制造过程中挑选和放置技术，用于生产复合材料工具。该项目将与总部位于德国的印刷电子系统领先供应商Neotech AMT(http://www.neotech-amt.com))合作进行。通过在工具的关键位置嵌入启用互联网的过程中监控传感器体系结构来创建智能工具的能力将使复合材料制造的数据驱动的实时决策以及改进的部件可追溯性、工具的智能预测性维护和工具寿命管理。[1]所有这些都是采用所谓的工业4.0和智能工厂的关键方面。[2-4]目前，CFRP复合材料部件需要昂贵的金属工具(模具)通过传统的制造过程来生产，例如数控加工。[5]材料损耗，成本和交付期意味着这些工具对于小批量或遗留的生产运行来说并不划算。对于小批量生产，因此使用更便宜的环氧树脂或聚合物复合材料工具。[6]添加剂制造提供了通过劳动力密集度较低的工艺生产更便宜的聚合物和聚合物复合材料工具的可能性，但至关重要的是，还具有能够整合嵌入式传感器等功能的额外优势。如果今天要实现这一点，就需要人工干预或使用多个制造系统，这会对交货期等方面产生负面影响。如果可以创建一个单一的工艺，允许生产出坚固耐用的聚合物复合工具，但在工具中嵌入电子设备和传感器来监控制造过程中的工艺参数，那么影响可能是巨大的。到2030年，仅英国复合材料行业就有机会将其目前23亿GB的复合材料产品市场增长到12亿GB。[7]发展这项技术的技术障碍在于现有制造设备的能力，已经完成的有限的材料科学，以及最后缺乏强大的模型、模拟和设计软件，使后续部件能够有效制造。该项目将寻求解决这些技术障碍中的每一个作为目标。该项目的影响将通过学术出版物和通过与Neotech开发技术来传递，以便提供联合商业产品。

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.