A team of researchers from 萝莉社鈥檚 National Institute of Aviation Research (NIAR) received second place in the Outstanding Technical Paper Awards from the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE).
The technical paper, titled 鈥�,鈥� was written by Dr. Waruna Seneviratne, director of NIAR鈥檚 Advanced Technologies Lab for Aerospace Systems (ATLAS), Jerome Teoh, ATLAS analyst and research engineer and Swetha Thirumurugan, ATLAS aerospace manufacturing and research engineer.
While automated fiber placement techniques have significantly boosted the production speed of advanced composite structures, they often introduce manufacturing defects鈥攅specially when fibers are steered along complex contours. To address this challenge, researchers at NIAR ATLAS employed fiber patch placement, a multi-robotic method designed to streamline the deposition of fiber patches onto intricate geometries. This hybrid approach aims to reduce defects while meeting the high throughput demands of manufacturing geometrically complex composite parts.
"Fiber patch placement technology enhances automated manufacturing by bridging the gap between high-speed production and the demands of fabricating geometrically complex fiber composite parts," said Dr. Seneviratne. "This paper showcases the design and optimization process using a realistic structural example, demonstrating the method鈥檚 practical applicability and potential for industrial adoption."
The paper will be presented by the research team at the SAMPE Conference and Exhibition in Indianapolis on Thursday, May 22 at 9:30 a.m. Awards for SAMPE鈥檚 Outstanding Technical Papers will be presented at an awards breakfast, also on Thursday, May 22.
Seneviratne鈥檚 team will present at the conference including Certification of Thermoplastic Welding System for Aircraft Applications, Automated Fiber Placement of Ceramic Matrix Composites for Hot Structures, and Triaixial Overbraiding of Complex Composite Structures Using Melt-out Mandrels, and Process Development and Quality Assurance of Material Slitting for Automated Fiber Placement.