Abstracts

Forum Presentations for Thursday,  January 27, 2022

ABSTRACTS

 

Presentations for the Materials Innovation & Advanced Technology Leadership Forum on Thursday, January 27, 2022.

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SESSION 1 — CHALLENGES

Air Mobility - Economy of Scale, John Geriguis and Nobuya Kawamura

Air mobility key factors : safety is north star, light-weight is central to achieve maximum range, production volume expected to be significantly higher than traditional aerospace, total cost of ownership of an aircraft is a key to success. Economy of scale needs: the lightest materials​, the strongest materials​, the toughest materials​, the most economical materials, the most economical methods, the fastest processes. Reduce material cost: no waste​, no material expiration, no out-time limitations, reduce material purchased by 50%. Reduce touch labor: automated processes​, in-situ inspections​, in-situ repairs, digital twin​, eliminate the variables. Industry improvement opportunities : Improve quality inspection methods​, improve lay-up time, improve material for AFP, improve weight saving​, improve takt time. Working together to expedite disruptive technologies.



Recycling and Circular Economy of Automotive Composite Parts, Hendrik Mainka

The proposed presentation can be viewed as having 3 segments, each building on the other to prove out a complete recycling loop for selected automotive fiber reinforced composites. First, the glass fiber composite recycling process will be conducted on existing lab scale equipment to validate process feasibility on the selected automotive composite part from Volkswagen, sheet molding compound (SMC) liftgates, with recovered fiber quality assessed. After successful small-scale process and fiber recovery validation, the project proceed to a pilot line test validating composite recycling at scale. During large scale testing additional process variables can be accurately captured, such as process energy consumption, environmental emissions, etc., as well quality and yield of lower value recovered mineral fillers. Fiber recovered during the pilot demonstration can then be utilized for the fabrication of a recycled fiber composite for potential automotive reuse. After molding and characterization of the recycled fiber composite performance, a comprehensive cost and environmental impact analysis is completed assessing the business case for using the proposed composite recycling technology to underpin a new circular economy supply chain that supports the automotive market.



Composite Material Opportunities and Challenges for Air Mobility and Unmanned Systems, Robert Yancey

The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) market is emerging quickly as the next generation of efficiently transporting people and cargo in urban environments and underserved regions. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) market is growing rapidly for both defense and commercial applications. Both markets require advanced composite materials for lightweight and efficient operations. They also are challenging current material and manufacturing systems as they will require material and manufacturing systems that result in high-volume, low-cost, but reliable composite structures. This presentation will cover the structural material challenges, opportunities, and solutions for the UAV and AAM industries. It will include an in-depth discussion on the material selection criteria including cost, rate, quality, manufacturing process, supply chain, automation, and certification. Presentation content is applicable to companies in all stages of development and production for UAV/AAM vehicles.



SESSION 2 — SYNERGIES

Air Mobility - Economy of Scale, John Geriguis and Nobuya Kawamura

Air mobility key factors : safety is north star, light-weight is central to achieve maximum range, production volume expected to be significantly higher than traditional aerospace, total cost of ownership of an aircraft is a key to success. Economy of scale needs: the lightest materials​, the strongest materials​, the toughest materials​, the most economical materials, the most economical methods, the fastest processes. Reduce material cost: no waste​, no material expiration, no out-time limitations, reduce material purchased by 50%. Reduce touch labor: automated processes​, in-situ inspections​, in-situ repairs, digital twin​, eliminate the variables. Industry improvement opportunities : Improve quality inspection methods​, improve lay-up time, improve material for AFP, improve weight saving​, improve takt time. Working together to expedite disruptive technologies.



Recycling and Circular Economy of Automotive Composite Parts, Hendrik Mainka

The proposed presentation can be viewed as having 3 segments, each building on the other to prove out a complete recycling loop for selected automotive fiber reinforced composites. First, the glass fiber composite recycling process will be conducted on existing lab scale equipment to validate process feasibility on the selected automotive composite part from Volkswagen, sheet molding compound (SMC) liftgates, with recovered fiber quality assessed. After successful small-scale process and fiber recovery validation, the project proceed to a pilot line test validating composite recycling at scale. During large scale testing additional process variables can be accurately captured, such as process energy consumption, environmental emissions, etc., as well quality and yield of lower value recovered mineral fillers. Fiber recovered during the pilot demonstration can then be utilized for the fabrication of a recycled fiber composite for potential automotive reuse. After molding and characterization of the recycled fiber composite performance, a comprehensive cost and environmental impact analysis is completed assessing the business case for using the proposed composite recycling technology to underpin a new circular economy supply chain that supports the automotive market.



Composite Material Opportunities and Challenges for Air Mobility and Unmanned Systems, Robert Yancey

The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) market is emerging quickly as the next generation of efficiently transporting people and cargo in urban environments and underserved regions. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) market is growing rapidly for both defense and commercial applications. Both markets require advanced composite materials for lightweight and efficient operations. They also are challenging current material and manufacturing systems as they will require material and manufacturing systems that result in high-volume, low-cost, but reliable composite structures. This presentation will cover the structural material challenges, opportunities, and solutions for the UAV and AAM industries. It will include an in-depth discussion on the material selection criteria including cost, rate, quality, manufacturing process, supply chain, automation, and certification. Presentation content is applicable to companies in all stages of development and production for UAV/AAM vehicles.



SESSION 3 — ADVANCEMENTS

Rapid Large-Scale Structural Thermoplastic Parts, Michael Assadi and Todd “TJ” Chace

Industry has been slow to adopt structural thermoplastic composite materials for large scale parts. Heated presses are limited in scale and high temperature autoclaves require long process cycles. Most research to overcome this challenge has centered around in-situ consolidation during AFP intending to eliminate post-processing for curing. This places all the demands on the AFP process to achieve final part quality (low porosity and crystallinity). However, in-situ consolidation limits the speed (and productivity) of the AFP process due to the physics of thermoplastic materials. In addition, the in-situ AFP process is sensitive to the quality of the raw material, which can vary greatly. Electroimpact and Janicki Industries have developed complementary technologies to overcome these processing limitations. Electroimpact has developed advances in AFP processing, such as new heating technology and Variable Spot Size (VSS) laser has enabled the processing of thermoplastics with individual tow heating. When AFP is tasked only with material deposition, not in-situ consolidation, plies are laid down at significantly higher rates with the added benefit of repairability. Janicki Industries has developed a scalable heated tooling system capable of processing thermoplastic laminates out of autoclave with cycle times significantly shorter than autoclave cures. The system has been designed for scalability to fill the market need for rapid processing of TPC parts with a footprint larger than a heated press and faster processing time than large autoclaves. Post-processing laminates after high-speed AFP provides complete consolidation and controlled crystallization. By combining these two technologies, high-rate manufacturing of large-scale structural thermoplastic composite parts may be realized.



NCC’s Digital for Composites (D4C) – From Right First Time to Right Every Time, Enrique Garcia

In a push for increased reliability manufacturing of aerospace composite has steadily moved into more automated and more capable processes. In parallel, more accurate modelling of the manufacturing processes and Artificial Intelligence techniques have also allowed to identify the right manufacturing parameters faster. Also in recent years in-process monitoring has significantly increased the confidence in the processes, but not to the point of completely eliminating the requirement of a finished part verification and validation, which is time consuming and costly. All these technologies have, so far, worked in relative isolation, contributing to the different points of the serial development of product and process, but a paradigm shift is possible. Through collaborations with major aerospace customers in programmes like Airbus’ Wing of Tomorrow and Rolls Royce’s Ultrafan the National Composites Centre has developed a framework that effectively links all those advances (automation of both design and manufacturing processes, advanced multi-scale simulation, Machine Learning and other AI techniques, in-process sensorisation) and re-engineers the engineering process. This significantly accelerates both product and process development of new composite parts by allowing faster design loops and the rapid implementation of closed-loop fully automated manufacturing of composite materials. The closed-loop process can adapt to guarantee that parts will be manufactured Right Every Time. Not only that, the learning accumulated as parts are manufactured continuously adapts the closed-loop control to improve it and also feeds back to the automated design tools for the next generation of designs. The presentation will go through the framework with examples in different sectors on how this can be implemented.



Aerospace Integral Structures by LRI Based in Automated Lamination of Fabrics with ADMP, Peio Olaskoaga

ADMP is a unique lay-up technology capable of laminating at very high rate, based in multiaxiality of fabrics, big ply formats and high deposition speed. In combination with the integration of structures for wingboxes and other elements, provides advantages as to achieve important increase of capacity and reduction of costs. In the presentation, the basics of the technology will be presented, and complemented with the demonstration capabilities shown in some applications, performed in different partnerships with big players.



SESSION 4 — SIMULATION/SOFTWARE CONTRIBUTORS

AI-Based Production Scheduling And Process Optimization Drive Manufacturing Agility And Efficiencies, Avner Ben-Bassat

In the face of unprecedented global uncertainties, instability in market demand and supply chain disruptions, advanced manufacturers – such as composites, automotive and wind industry related manufacturers - must examine innovative strategies to support complex manufacturing at lower costs. Advanced scheduling applications using AI-based algorithms automatically create & optimize plans and respond to frequent changes on the shop floor, are a powerful tool to further support the smart factory vision. The result is increased utilization of factory resources and improved on-time delivery, while reducing production costs. Integrating the schedule with the shop-floor systems, allows for real-time data collection, monitoring of planned vs. actual, and thus the ability to adapt the schedule as needed. This way planning and shop-floor operations are integrated, enhancing human-machine collaboration. During this session, we’ll discuss a set of real-life examples and composites industry best practices, based on proven track record, including: - How automation allows to smoothly adapt to the current unprecedented times of global uncertainties and cut operational costs. - How AI-based scheduling algorithms create new opportunities for advanced manufacturers, allowing better utilization of factory resources, fitting a range of business of all sizes and levels of the supply chain, with different needs and constraints. - How end-to-end digitization enable enhanced productivity, quality and efficiency across industrial and business processes, allowing you to remain viable and sustainable.



How Credible Simulation Significantly Reduces Product Development Time and Cost, Javad Fatemi

Today’s very competitive space market drives companies to significantly shorten time to market and lower product development cost, without compromising quality. The traditional engineering processes for development and qualification of space products have shown their limitations to achieve these challenging objectives. New engineering processes for development and qualification of space structure systems is based on the Simulation-Driven Product Development approach are proposed. The fundamental differences of the new approach compared to the traditional one lie in the role of simulation and physical testing in the product development and qualification. In the traditional approach, physical testing is mainly used for the verification of requirements and qualification of products, while in the new approach, credible simulations are used to assess the system for integrity and fulfilment of the requirements. The new approach requires a numerical qualification model with proven and accepted accuracy for its intended use. Verification and validation of numerical simulations are of paramount importance for achieving the required level of confidence in the simulations. A vital step in this approach is the validation of the numerical methodologies using experimental data. A hierarchical building-block approach where the system under development is decomposed in several levels with different complexities is used: from the highest complexity, i.e. system, to the lowest complexity, i.e. single physics. The numerical simulation methodologies are validated through the test/simulation pyramid from single physics up to sub-system level. Then the validated simulation methodologies are used to predict the behaviour at system level. Quantification of uncertainties in terms of manufacturing tolerances and statistical nature of material and structural properties, and their propagation in the simulation are important parts of the simulation validation process. Uncertainty quantification in simulation is the modelling and evaluation of the impact of imperfectly known information on the design and development of products or processes to support decision making. Traditionally, simulations are deterministic and uncertainties are accounted for by design rules that define safety and reserve factors. With increasing complexity of designs, it becomes difficult to assess the level of conservatism because of the interaction of different factors used to cover uncertainties of individual aspects. It could even be that the design is not conservative and the design is under-designed. Accounting for uncertainties gives insight in the robustness of the design and the variability that can be expected in series of the product. In addition, the quantification of uncertainties and their propagation in the simulation will also result in a probability of failure, which could potentially result in lowering the design safety factors, consequently resulting in less conservative designs. Apart from design, quantification of the uncertainties is useful for the validation of simulations against experiments. Both simulations and experiments are subject to uncertainties that can be quantified. The effects of various sources of uncertainty on the experimental data are required to be quantified. Measurement error, design uncertainties, manufacturing and assembly tolerances are some of the examples of the sources of uncertainty. Experimental outcomes, which are the product of this uncertainty quantification activity, will include experimental data plus uncertainty bounds as a function of load in a static test. Once experimental outcomes (measured data and their uncertainties) and simulation outcomes (including uncertainties) have been generated, the accuracy of simulation can be assessed by comparing these two sets of outcomes using validation metrics. The test-validated simulations will not only be used for the verification of designs and their trade-offs, but also for the qualification of the product for flight, i.e. replacing the physical testing of the qualification model, resulting in significant reduction of development cycle time, cost and risks.



Software Platform Solutions for Composites Design, Manufacturing and Simulation 4.0, William Ramroth

In today’s pre-world 4.0, engineering of composites parts is still a multidisciplinary activity involving design, manufacturing and simulation. Traditional approaches rely too heavily upon data transition and file exchange between disconnected composites design, manufacturing and simulation solutions. The resulting engineering process is slow and prone to errors. The business consequences are the risk of issues found late in the current engineering process with a high cost to make necessary changes to meet product requirements. Few alternatives are considered, and design iterations are slow, leaving significant uncertainty in the quality of the final product. Changes are need regardless of market applications. Software platform from Dassault Systèmes provides a model-based environment with seamless interoperability between composites design, manufacturing and simulation. Such platforms are necessary in today’s 4.0 world. No data translation occurs while being shared between composites design, manufacturing, and simulation activities. For example, composites simulations transparently consumes composites design data and the composites simulations may automatically update as future changes to the composites design occur. This sort of model-based efficiency enables the consideration of more alternatives and design iterations; ensuring that there is confidence in the quality of the final product while meeting all product requirements. Recently developed software platform supports model-based approaches in the full end-to-end composites engineering process from concept to preliminary design to detailed design to manufacturing. Multiple manufacturing techniques are available including composites braiding, composites forming, hand-layup and plastic injection molding of short-fiber composites. Through each phase, various aspects of design, manufacturing and simulation mature the product definition while increasing confidence in the ability of the product to satisfy design requirements. Producibility predictions about manufacturability inform the composites design and add fidelity to composites simulation. Similarly, structural analysis ensures composites design performance and identifies optimal manufacturing parameters. Such software platforms are necessary component to Industry and Composites 4.0 going forward.



Efficient Manufacturing for 21st Century Composite Structures, Alex Rubin

In this presentation, the author will discuss the role of design architecture, Model Based Engineering (MBE) integration, production system optimization, automated manufacturing processes, and other factors that have a direct impact on accelerating production rates required to meet current and especially future needs for composite aerospace components. An integrated MBE approach for various design and manufacturing steps of composite component development, fabrication and product support are necessary to maintain component quality requirements and cost goals throughout component lifecycle. New materials and manufacturing processes that enable these higher rates will need to be implemented, as well as critical in-line monitoring and in-line inspection techniques. Future aircraft may include different composite materials and processes options to achieve the performance/rate/cost/quality requirements for specific composite components at higher rates. The various analytical solutions are needed to integrate sensor data, Machine Learning and Physics Based process optimization models resulting in real-time closed loop control systems to adjust the process to meet multiple requirements, for Boeing internal manufacturing and at Suppliers.