Affordable Composites WDSF 15th November 2016 Presented by Alison Starr Executive Director National Composites Centre © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template What is a Composite? The ultimate ‘designer material’! Page 2 © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template Human Use of Composites The English Long Bow Soft sapwood in tension and denser heartwood in compression 2 materials working together The ancient Sumerians made composites Mud – the matrix Straw - the reinforce The classic composite Page 3 © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template Today’s Applications It is interesting to note that the amount of composites used in construction differs depending on where you live in the world - the far east are significant users in building cladding; the  Aerospace–making Wings, spoilers, fairings, engine blades Dutch for composite based bridges over canals – while the UK  Marine–for Boat structures, canoes, paddles who invented the materials lags far behind in this area.  Renewable Energy Generation –especially for Wind turbine blades And has anyone seen the roof of the new Apple building? The  High end -Sporting Goods –in Golf club shafts, tennis building known as the Theatre has a carbon fiber roof, which rackets, cycle frames  To the new and emerging areas such as Apple is saying is the largest freestanding carbon fiber roof  Automotive–using it in Brake discs, body panels, leaf ever made. The circular roof weighs 80 tons and is slightly springs above 43 metres in diameter. It is made up of 44 identical  Medical–for Wheelchairs, leg braces, prosthetic devices. radial panels, each 21 metres long and 3.3 metres wide.  Civil Engineering – for Bridge reinforcements, clading, wall panels © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template Composites Global Opportunity Page 5 5 © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template Manufacturing Methods Presented by © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template Traditional Aerospace Manufacturing Material / tool Manual lay-up Curing preparation While improvement have been made over these traiational methods like automated cutting ad lazer guided layup the 8 hour cure cycle is a big challenge for the industry Page 7 © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template Automated Fibre Placement  Automated Fibre Placement now normal for large, primary structures for aerospace parts, and has been one of the main enablers of the significant shift to composites on aircraft such as A350 and the Boeing 787  With AFP, robots can manufacture large complex geometry parts of high quality and performance by laying down multiple narrow strips of carbon fibre straight onto a mould surface which allows for a very high degree of tailoring of the material to the loads and shape requirements, giving highly optimised, light weight structures, with significantly reduced production times and costs achieved  However, this is a slow and costly process, with very poor asset utilisation. The economics have been made to work for large aircraft which require slower build rates and highly performance driven, but the process is inappropriate for high rate lower cost Automated lay-up manufacture needs of short range aircraft fleets Page 8 © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template It’s all in the Head ! While the robots are very useful and we need to be able to control them, get them to collaborate, much of the power NCC Patent is in the design of the head and tools the robots use. The heads show here enable, tape laying, curing as the tape is laid and a prototype for lifting complex and delicate fabric pieces automatically into a complex tool The design of the head is an area expertise for the NCC, we are now designing heads that are multi function so the head does not have to be changed to achieve the different aspects of a task. Page 9 © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template The 3 D Factor – Through Thickness Reinforcement Local reinforcement One of the issues for Composites has been the delamination, or the pulling apart, of the layers under some conditions leading to failure. New stitching and pinning techniques – known as Z pinning and tufting are now being developed – these hold the layers together and stop the delamination from occurring. The work we have done at the NCC has led to patents in this area. Page 10 © National Composites Centre. All rights reserved. Confidential and proprietary document. Parent PowerPoint Template