THE AUTOMATION OF THE LAY-UP AND CONSOLIDATION OF PEEK*GRAPHITE FIBER COMPOSITES*

摘要

ABSTRACT The processing of PEEK/graphite fiber composites is characterized by an inordinate amount of hand labor. This greatly increases the cost, time, and inaccuracy involved in production. Automation of the lay-up and consolidation steps are a prerequisite for the widespread application and acceptance of these, as well as all, high performance materials. Automated techniques for the lay-up and consolidation of PEEK/graphite fiber composites have been developed and are presented in this paper. Discrete part lay-up schemes utilize robotic manipulators and specially constructed tables and allow any lay-up configuration to be automatically produced at high production rates. The size of the discrete parts was limited to 4 by 4 meters by design, not by any inherent difficulties. This size can be increased by enlarging the lay-up table. The length of a continuous sheet was limited by the length of the PEEK/graphite fiber prepreg material currently available. Its width was also restricted to 4 meters by design, but also can be increased to the desired width. Continuous consolidation methods were designed for both discrete and continuous parts. Heating is performed by quartz radiative heaters and consolidation pressure is produced by pressure rollers. These processes were designed taking into consideration