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AIC upgrades giant autoclave
Reinforced Plastics Volume 60, Number 1 January/February 2016
TECHNOLOGY
AIC Group has received an order to upgrade two autoclaves of a major Japanese aerospace company. One of the autoclaves used for curing wings measures 8.5 m in diameter and 40 m in length, big enough to house the entire wing span of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Because of its size, it presents extra challenges to ensure even heating and cooling. The other measures 3.5 m 12 m. Both of the autoclaves are 13 years old and some of their components are obsolete, so they need to be upgraded to ensure reliability of production. The
Autoclaves are essential for manufacturers in the aerospace industry.
Japanese aerospace company make 12 sets of wings per month, with each wing costing US$2.5 million, so the company cannot afford any unnecessary downtime. ‘Autoclaves are essential for manufacturers in the aerospace industry,’ said Jamie Hardiment, AIC’s head of business development. ‘We are taking two standard use autoclaves and making them as good as new by upgrading many of the features.’ AIC Group; www.aicservice.com
Arevo Labs introduces robotic AM platform for 3d printing composite parts Arevo Labs, a specialist in composite additive manufacturing technology, has introduced a scalable Robot-based Additive Manufacturing (RAM) platform for fabricating 3D printed composite parts. The technology consists of a standard commercially available robot, composite deposition end-effector hardware and a software suite. It can be used with ABB’s smallest 6-axis robot, the IRB 120, though the scalable software can support larger ABB robot models and sizes. The additive end-effector hardware consists of a deposition head with thermal management technology for processing high-performance carbon-fiber reinforced thermoplastics.
The software includes CAM software to convert CAD models to a set of additive deposition instructions for the robot and a kinematics simulator that interprets deposition instructions to validate and improve part construction. Arevo Labs’ RAM platform also interfaces with ABB’s RobotStudio programming and simulation software to improve the tool path generation from CAD files.
Improved strength The platform has multi-axis toolpaths which enable production quality parts constructed with true 3D surfaces in variable orientations. The resulting parts have strength and aesthetics superior to those made with conven-
tional Cartesian based additive manufacturing (AM) equipment and software, Avero claims. It has automation and secondary process integration within manufacturing work cells. Depending upon the size of the robot, the part build envelope is scalable from 1000 mm3 to 8 m3. ‘We are excited to be the first to develop a robot based additive manufacturing platform optimized for composite parts,’ said Hemant Bheda, CEO and founder of Arevo Labs. ‘Unencumbered by the constraints of conventional Cartesian systems, this platform is the dawn of the additive manufacturing work cell for the aerospace and defense factory-of-the-future.’ Arevo Labs; www.arevolabs.com
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TECHNOLOGY
AIC upgrades giant autoclave
TECHNOLOGY
AIC Group has received an order to upgrade two autoclaves of a major Japanese aerospace company. One of the autoclaves used for curing wings measures 8.5 m in diameter and 40 m in length, big enough to house the entire wing span of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Because of its size, it presents extra challenges to ensure even heating and cooling. The other measures 3.5 m 12 m. Both of the autoclaves are 13 years old and some of their components are obsolete, so they need to be upgraded to ensure reliability of production. The
Autoclaves are essential for manufacturers in the aerospace industry.
Japanese aerospace company make 12 sets of wings per month, with each wing costing US$2.5 million, so the company cannot afford any unnecessary downtime. ‘Autoclaves are essential for manufacturers in the aerospace industry,’ said Jamie Hardiment, AIC’s head of business development. ‘We are taking two standard use autoclaves and making them as good as new by upgrading many of the features.’ AIC Group; www.aicservice.com
Arevo Labs introduces robotic AM platform for 3d printing composite parts Arevo Labs, a specialist in composite additive manufacturing technology, has introduced a scalable Robot-based Additive Manufacturing (RAM) platform for fabricating 3D printed composite parts. The technology consists of a standard commercially available robot, composite deposition end-effector hardware and a software suite. It can be used with ABB’s smallest 6-axis robot, the IRB 120, though the scalable software can support larger ABB robot models and sizes. The additive end-effector hardware consists of a deposition head with thermal management technology for processing high-performance carbon-fiber reinforced thermoplastics.
The software includes CAM software to convert CAD models to a set of additive deposition instructions for the robot and a kinematics simulator that interprets deposition instructions to validate and improve part construction. Arevo Labs’ RAM platform also interfaces with ABB’s RobotStudio programming and simulation software to improve the tool path generation from CAD files.
Improved strength The platform has multi-axis toolpaths which enable production quality parts constructed with true 3D surfaces in variable orientations. The resulting parts have strength and aesthetics superior to those made with conven-
tional Cartesian based additive manufacturing (AM) equipment and software, Avero claims. It has automation and secondary process integration within manufacturing work cells. Depending upon the size of the robot, the part build envelope is scalable from 1000 mm3 to 8 m3. ‘We are excited to be the first to develop a robot based additive manufacturing platform optimized for composite parts,’ said Hemant Bheda, CEO and founder of Arevo Labs. ‘Unencumbered by the constraints of conventional Cartesian systems, this platform is the dawn of the additive manufacturing work cell for the aerospace and defense factory-of-the-future.’ Arevo Labs; www.arevolabs.com
19
TECHNOLOGY
AIC upgrades giant autoclave