20 years of automating composites

Automation continues to be a key trend in composites, with manufacturers seeking increased speed, lower cost and improved quality. Long before the current surge, Accudyne Systems (Newark, DE, US) was designing and manufacturing part-specific equipment to automate difficult and/or labor-intensive processes in composites. Now celebrating its twentieth anniversary, Accudyne Systems continues to provide ingenious solutions to complex equipment processing challenges, optimized for specific and often unique customer needs. The company has delivered automated fiber placement machines, flat charge laminators, kitting machines, stringer formers, bladder wrappers, cross-ply laminators, de-bulking systems and pick-and-place laminators. It has equipment used in parts production for platforms including the Boeing 787, Airbus A350, V-22 Osprey and others.

One of its recent deliveries is a Small Parts Laminator for fabricating composite laminates used in the commercial aircraft industry. The machine builds a range of composite shapes including “L”, “C”, “U” and hat geometries that are ultimately converted into clips and brackets. The operator places plies from two separate part kits, one at a time, onto a placement table. The machine then picks up the ply, places it on the tool, forms the ply and then shuttles the tool over to a compaction bladder dedicated to that tool. While the first part is being compacted, the same process begins for the second part. By building two parts at a time, the machine is able to complete one ply every minute. The machine produces both male and female parts, up to 203 mm wide and 1372 mm long. Part recipes are created and saved using a touch screen displaying simple menu options and machine status. The automated laminator replaces a labor intensive, hand lay-up process resulting in a reported ten-fold increase in productivity.

Mike Smoot, VP of Sales and Marketing, will be presenting “Increased Productivity through Automated Pick, Place and Form Technology” at CAMX 2016 (Sep. 26-29, Anaheim, CA, US) in the Automation & Robotics session Thursday afternoon, and will also be exhibiting at CAMX in booth R60, Hall B.  To learn more contact Mike Smoot, msmoot@accudyne.com.