EFFECTIVE AND FLEXIBLE ULTRASOUND SENSORS FOR CURE MONITORING FOR INDUSTRIAL COMPOSITE PRODUCTION

Kurzfassung

Fiber reinforced plastics production is growing at high rates in aeronautic and automotive as well as wind energy industry. On the other hand the production of these composite materials is complex – therefore difficult to automate – and cost-intensive due to the high amount of necessary manual work.The curing of the thermoset polymer matrix is one of the key steps in the process chain, where process-integrated cure monitoring sensors could play an important role for quality assurance, process optimization and automation. While ultrasound sensors are well suited for cure monitoring, in practice – especially in regard of industrial production conditions – the reliability is not sufficient for automated processes. Instead of the commonly used ultrasound transducers a method is presented where toolmounted piezoceramics are used instead. These sensors are tested for their capability and efficiency as cure monitoring sensors and furthermore integration techniques and application examples are presented.