The First-Time-Right project is almost coming to an end and all the components of the final demonstrator are being integrated. One of these components is the Smart Silicone Vacuum Bag. The silicone vacuum bag is a product produced by CT Platon in Werkendam in The Netherlands. The bag can be used during at least 400...
Project Vixed is carried out by 6 Aeronautical Engineering students to reinvent manual composites training by means of Virtual Reality. The aim is to mitigate time and money that is spent by companies or educational institutes on training of their personnel in manufacturing composites. Reducing costs within a company usually refers to optimizing the...
The 3D printing of large scale molds for vacuum injection has many potential advantages when compared to CNC milling or injection molding. There is a lot of research and development taking place in the area of 3D printing with thermoplastics worldwide. It can be cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly than the conventional production methods....
Composite production relies heavily on the use of molds in order to produce (small) series and intricate shapes. Most of these molds are either made of the same materials as the product itself, or out of metals such as aluminum or steel. While these molds are durable in the sense that they can be used...
Work package 1 of the First time Right project focusses on the ‘state of the art’ of vacuum injection production process within the consortium companies. All companies in the consortium are involved in vacuum injection in some way. Some use it to produce a substantial part of their products. The polyester and glass fiber combination...
Developing a smart mould to improve the vacuum infusion process This research is carried out by Marco Withag, the goal of the research is to investigate if the vacuum infusion process can be improved by actively controlling the resin front flow using a closed loop control system, without the need of human labour involved. This...
Developing an automated demoulding method using sonic actuators. This research is carried out by Anouar Elsayed with the aim to investigate, develop and validate a method for automatically demoulding a composite part after vacuum infusion by utilising sonic elements. The composites industry has shown a significant growth over the last decade, there is constantly more demand...
To achieve the first-time-right dream, smarter and better solutions are always being explored to improve many of the methods used to create composite products. One of the main ideas of our first-time-right project in the vacuum infusion process is to create an intelligent mould that is capable to control the resin flow. The focus will be...
Simulation driven infusion prediction system using augmented reality. The Smart Monitoring research (“Compo ARt”) is carried out by Jonas S.I. Rieder, combining the newest visualisation innovations with up-to-date composites manufacturing. The aim of “Compo ARt” is overlaying a predicted resin flow on top of the mould, enabling a sneak-peak in the future of the process....
