Liquid Composite Molding Process Control

Kurzfassung

The institute of Composite Technology tries to combine data from simulation of Liquid Composite Molding (LCM) processes with real live process data. This should enable process control, making LCM processes more economic and reliable. For this studies are conducted to improve the simulation and to obtain every process parameter necessary. To make it possible to measure every important process dependent parameter technology must be found or developed. For this purpose an infrastructure was created that enables to test and evaluate different sensor technologies in a fast way. This infrastructure includes software as well as hardware. To acquire the data a data logger was developed, using python, allowing the operator to evaluate data during the tests. To digitalize and distribute data a data logger system, based on the Arduino platform, was developed. The technologies tested are evaluated if appropriate to resolve the filling level of an LCM process and are either based on radar or laser triangulation. The radar sensor was tested during production of a real part, because the sensor was already integrated into production. It was examined if the recorded data is right and if it is precise enough to base a simulation and through this a process prediction on it. Since the laser triangulation sensor was never used before in the context of measuring filling levels of resin it was tested on resin probes and with a small injection test set up. The two investigated technologies have proven not suitable to obtain the filling level precisely. The radar sensors resolution is too small as well as the sampling rate, although approximate process progress could be identified. Whereas, the laser triangulation sensor, cannot detect the resin surface and thus is not suitable for this purpose at all. Ultrasonic wave sensor technology is going to be investigated next. This technology has proven that it can detect resin and its amount, but the data acquisition system is not suitable for industrial purposes yet.