Development of a membrane-shaped MR-based composite draping tool

Abstract

Nowadays, the manufacturing process of composite parts is still dominated by a high level of cost-intensive manual tasks which impedes the use of these materials in composite processing SMEs as well as in high-end automotive and aerospace industries. The draping of fibre sheets is often still carried out manually because of the difficult handling properties, the high variety and complexity of the materials and the product contours. Even the current manipulation tools, for composite draping or preforming in moulds, often lack controllability and flexibility to cope with a high mix of features in the composite product. In automation, these problems are often answered by cost-increasing multi-robotic systems, using multiple degrees of freedom in combination with a large range of feature-specific tools. The need for rather simple, cost-effective manipulation tools triggered the development of a membrane-shaped magnetorheological (MR) based composite draping tool. First, a fluid-filled bag will cover the mould entirely and will perform the initial forming of the composite material whilst both preventing the creation of wrinkles and securing the readily draped areas during further processing. Subsequently, by applying local pressure on the fibre sheet through magnetic activation, draping in narrow or corner-like features will be enhanced. Furthermore, slippage of fibrous material between the membrane and the mould surface can be mastered during forming, facilitating the control of fibre orientation and shear angles. First experimental tests indicate that this technique shows large potential to enable full automation of the entire draping process by the flexible use of a single robot arm and multitool whilst being product and feature independent. C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 7th CIRP Global Web Conference