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The high manufacturing-rate of CFRP-parts for aerospace components is demanding for efficient solutions in the field of automated systems and intelligent toolings. Combining these two factors the production of CFRP-parts is becoming more efficient than using this separately or even better than using manual processes and conventional toolings. The department of Production Systems within Premium AEROTEC has developed both self heating toolings for preforming and curing of CFRP-parts as w ell as automated handling and draping systems for CFRP-material (i.e. dry laminates or prepreg). This will be presented in this article.

As a new material FML, made by aluminum foils and Glasfiber-Prepreg, is a real alternative to common materials for fuselages of aircrafts like monolithic aluminum or CFRP. Since experiences within A380 this material has some really good advantages and develops to the status as alternative to aluminum and composite structures. To become FML as a real alternative to aluminum and carbon structures there are many things to improve: design, material, costs and process chain. So following one of the main goals for an industrial application for high production rates of aircrafts is the automation of production processes inside the process chain for FML-parts like skins and panels for fuselages. To reach this goal for high production rates first steps of automation inside this new process chain have been developed in the last two years. Main steps is the automated lay-up of metallic foils and Glasfiber-Prepreg.

In this paper, different systems for handling CFRP-materials in various applications will be shown and described. Both dry fabrics and Prepreg material can be handled by fully automated systems, which can be assisted by an industrial robot. After development and realization, numerous tests have shown the maturity of these systems. At certain examples the handling of dry fabrics has been validated. Also an end-effector for handling of prepreg material has shown the potential for automation of handling this material. At a further step laminated stringer can be formed from a tape carpet on the tape layer machine and position this laminate in a pre-forming tool. And with a fully automated system lay-up and draping for CFRP-frame preforms was developed.

Premium AEROTEC has developed several concepts for an automated process chain in order to manufacture CFRP parts by means of an RTM process. The presented process is robot assisted and the degree of automation can be even increased by the use of sensors. In this paper the authors will present the developed steps of the above mentioned process. The decollating of single layers of a 20 layer stack at the cutting table has been put into practice successfully. After this first process step the layers can be preformed automatically in a preform tool by means of a robot assisted handling device. Then the RTM tool can be loaded. The parts can be cured in a fast RTM process which is vital to cope with the high production rates demanded by the automotive industry. In a final process step the finishing of the outer outline of the cured CFRP part is presented.