Clarifying vibrational issues of an advanced automated fiber placement production plant

Advanced Fiber Placement is the technology being used to manufacture large-area, high quality parts of fiber composite materials. Due to the large-scale the production cycles are long and the parts become very expensive. One promising approach for improvement is to increase the desired laying accuracy to avoid degraded parts combined with higher laying speed. This paper deals with vibrations caused by operating plant components which reduce the production accuracy and speed for composites. Therefore, vibrational issues concerning single and linked elements of the production plant are in focus. Accordingly, the test setup consisting of autonomous data logger, and sensing elements is illustrated. Different scenarios to gain measurement data are studied. The recorded data is analyzed to explore the source of vibration. The vibration´s origin is based on eigenfrequencies and the related eigenmodes are excited by operation. Based on the analyzed data an optimized plant layout is proposed. The use of additional sensors and smart structures technology is discussed.