ADAPTIVE TRIMMING OF COMPOSITE PARTS

Some of the techniques used in the Adaptive Manufacturing System are normal aerospace processes. The unique and enabling process is the scanning and adaptive trimming.

There are myriad benefits for use of composites in achieving aircraft performance goals. However, composites come with unique challenges as well.

The challenges include a high diversity of parts, even within a family of “similar” parts, and the tendency of the parts to be outside of a perfectly nominal contour due to spring-back from the layup tools unless rigidly constrained. These two challenges traditionally mean a large investment in unique tooling custom to each part with vacuum tools that constrain the part over 100% of its surface. This results in a large number of tools that must be designed, produced, handled, stored, maintained, and updated for engineering changes.