INTEGRATED PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY AND PROCESS DEVELOPMENT FOR AUTOMATED COMPOSITES PRODUCTION

Abstract

Within the defining integrated technology strategy a critical issue is integration of production technology and process development. Often production technology development does not include process development with the assumption being that process technology can be easily developed by the company introducing automated composite production. We have established a long term development and research policy which includes integrated production technology and process development for automated composites production. This article will present two technologies and development efforts: Filament Winding with different degree of complexity and automation and Automated Fiber Placement Machine (AFPM) with complex machine software for programming and control (MikroPlace, MikroAutomate). Parallel efforts have been focused on new process development and process improvement, particularly in terms of technological, economical and ecological aspects.