PROCESS MONITORING AND CONTROL FOR THE PRODUCTION OF CFRP COMPONENTS

摘要

An electrical resistance and temperature monitoring system focused on the in-situ process monitoring of composite manufacturing processes is presented and applied in high-end composites applications. Durable non-intrusive sensors have been used for the sensing of resin arrival, viscosity changes as well as curing. Simultaneous measurements of temperature and electrical resistance of the matrix provide in-situ real-time indication of the resin viscosity during processing but also to identify and handle issues such as the aging of premixed resins or prepregs. Additionally, the correlation of the measurements with kinetic and viscosity models resins prove that the proposed system is able to monitor the process from the minimum viscosity level up to the end-of-cure. Also, comparison to dielectric systems proves the present system's superiority for this type of applications. Furthermore, the feedback of the monitoring system has been employed successfully for the real-time control of the composites processing to ensure product quality and cycle time reduction. The monitoring and control systems did prove their advantages in monitoring and control of an RTM epoxy CFRP production achieving curing cycle acceleration by 36% and maximum cycle temperature reduction by 5%.