scholarly journals LiDAR Based Multi-Robot Cooperation for the 3D Printing of Continuous Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composite Structures

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nanya Li ◽  
Guido Link ◽  
Junhui Ma ◽  
John Jelonnek

3D printing of lightweight continuous carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CCFRP) in three dimensions changes the traditional composite manufacturing processes. The continuous carbon fibers reinforced plastic filament can be printed along the load transmission path and significantly improve the strength of composite structures. Compared to the three-axis computer numerical controlled (CNC) machine based printing process, industrial robots provide the possibility to manufacture complex, spatial and large-scale composite structures. Here, the concept to use multi-robot to print complex spatial CCFRP components simultaneously has been presented. More than one 6 degrees of freedom industrial robots can cooperate with each other and solve the contradiction between structural complexity and printing reachability. During the printing process, the deformation of composite structures may happen, especially for the self-supporting components. Thus, in this paper, a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) method is introduced to detect the deformation of printed composite structure and the movements of two UR robots. To obtain the point clouds of the printed structure, a LiDAR camera D435i has been installed on one robot. A new approach by combining coordinate transformation and iterative-closest-point (ICP) algorithm has been developed to merge the point clouds collected from different shooting angles of the camera.

Polymers ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 301
Author(s):  
Jiale Hu ◽  
Suhail Mubarak ◽  
Kunrong Li ◽  
Xu Huang ◽  
Weidong Huang ◽  
...  

Three-dimensional (3D) printing of continuous fiber-reinforced composites has been developed in recent decades as an alternative means to handle complex structures with excellent design flexibility and without mold forming. Although 3D printing has been increasingly used in the manufacturing industry, there is still room for the development of theories about how the process parameters affect microstructural properties to meet the mechanical requirements of the printed parts. In this paper, we investigated continuous carbon fiber-reinforced polyphenylene sulfide (CCF/PPS) as feedstock for fused deposition modeling (FDM) simulated by thermocompression. This study revealed that the samples manufactured using a layer-by-layer process have a high tensile strength up to 2041.29 MPa, which is improved by 68.8% compared with those prepared by the once-stacked method. Moreover, the mechanical–microstructure characterization relationships indicated that the compactness of the laminates is higher when the stacked CCF/PPS are separated, which can be explained based on both the void formation and the nanoindentation results. These reinforcements confirm the potential of remodeling the layer-up methods for the development of high-performance carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastics. This study is of great significance to the improvement of the FDM process and opens broad prospects for the aerospace industry and continuous fiber-reinforced polymer matrix materials.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Atikur Rahman ◽  
Md Zahirul Islam ◽  
Luke Gibbon ◽  
Chad A. Ulven ◽  
John J. La Scala

2020 ◽  
Vol 861 ◽  
pp. 165-169
Author(s):  
Tian Lan ◽  
Li Chao Dong ◽  
Zhong Yuan Lu ◽  
Shi Feng Guo ◽  
Hao Zhang ◽  
...  

3D printed carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFRP) have shown great potential in lightweight application. Here, we report a prepreg carbon fiber reinforced polyamide composite by fused filament fabrication 3D printing process. The influence of layer thickness and carbon fiber layers on mechanical properties of 3D printed parts was well studied. With the incorporation of prepreg carbon fibers, the value of tension and flexural strengths of 3D printed CFRP parts could achieve 2.7 and 13.6 times compared to neat polyamide, respectively. Result illustrates that with the prepreg process the carbon fiber have good interface bonding strength with neat polyimide. This work could also be used for more 3D printing composite systems.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document