AMIPC Technology Transfer Highlights

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As part of the ONR-AMIPC program and the ONR DURIP equipment grant, an intelligent VARTM workcell was established at UD-CCM. The workcell has been used to develop a highly automated and controlled manufacturing system for proveout of new preform, infusion, cure, and QA/AC technologies. The program goal is to further increase the basic understanding of the process and associated variations in order to reduce costs and improve part quality and repeatability.

VARTM National Testbed

The VARTM national testbed incorporates a variety of in situ nondestructive evaluation and processing tools to measure and control the important process parameters. The system provides for automated mixing of the reacting systems and for slow rate control using a controlled differential vacuum pressure. Feedback is provided from three systems -- the SMARTweave system for 3-D flow information inside the part, the SMARTMolding sensor suite in the tool, and the camera system for surface analysis allow for flow sensing and flow control. A full set of on-line sensors is used to sense temperature, residual strain, warpage, and cure behavior in the part.

The most important components of the automated system have been packaged in an industrial, robust enclosure, allowing on-line control and monitoring of valving, vacuum, CCD-captured surface flow, resin arrival, and cure from tool-mounted sensors. This SMARTMolding system incorporates an extensive software library to control all components, and CASE Engineering LLC has been licensed to produce the hardware.

The SMARTMolding system has been demonstrated in several industrial beta-sites at Applied Aerospace, Solectria, XC Associates, TPI Composites, and the Naval Warfare Surface Center. The VARTM workcell was also successfully transitioned in a MANTECH program to completely automate the infusion process for production of composite integral armor for shell and blow-off panels for FCS applications.

Beta Sites

The first beta-site was established at NSWC Carderock to enable the Navy to validate technology developed in the AMIPC program. The initial proveout at NSWC allowed the successful implementation in a fully automated workcell at Applied Aerospace Structures Corp. (AASC; Stockton, CA) and United Defense Limited Partnership (UDLP; Santa Clara, CA) Funding from the Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) via the MANTECH program, enabled the development of production-ready equipment for Crusader hardware. The program leveraged from ongoing and past ONR AMIPC accomplishments in sensor and automation development, and increased the TRL levels of these technologies, allowing them to be implemented in a real manufacturing environment.

This included incoming material control and traceability via barcodes, automated mixing, automated vacuum checks, controlled resin infusion, and automated resin dwell and cure. The system enabled multiple, automated part fabrication using supervisory software with connections to a central database (total labor was reduced by 80%). All materials and process information from the sensors and actuators were stored in a separate database for quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC), and repeat manufacturing.

Under the AMIPC program, VARTM resin infusion simulation capability was developed. LIMS 5.0 allows the 3-D prediction of the resin flow in large and complex parts incorporating distribution media. In addition, a simple design tool was developed to predict flow behavior in simple-shaped parts without the expertise and computer power needed for LIMS. Northrop Grumman-Avondale requested UD-CCM support to evaluate changing to a thicker preform for large-scale naval structures. The automated 3-D permeability workcell was used to evaluate the preform and both LIMS and the design tool were exercised to predict the change in process conditions.

It was found that the change in preform resulted in minimum deviation of the flow behavior, enabling Avondale to keep their tooling and infusion scheme with minimum risk. The design tool proved to be accurate and was transitioned to Avondale to be utilized by their design and manufacturing engineers. Also, LIMS was transitioned to Boeing to optimize locations for vents and gates. Boeing-Philadelphia is using the design capabilities to replace secondary metal structures with composite parts for helicopter applications.

TPI (Warren, RI), the premier SCRIMP manufacturer in the U.S., is using UD-CCM's SMARTMolding system to produce composite HMMWV hoods (see CMT Processing Science section). They are currently transferring the technology to automate the infusion of 100+ foot wind blade production. As part of the current collaboration, TPI (the SCRIMP licensor) has granted SCRIMP license rights to UD-CCM. Solectria Corp. (Woburn, MA) has implemented the SMARTMolding technology to produce armor components using their DIAPHORM preforms. XC Associates (Berlin, N.Y.) is using the cure sensing capabilities of the SMARTMolding system, in their production of electronic enclosures for the U.S. Navy, which supports quality control and repeat manufacturing.

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