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Optimization of The Diaphragm Forming Process With Regard To Product Quality and Cost
Optimization of The Diaphragm Forming Process With Regard To Product Quality and Cost
Optimization of The Diaphragm Forming Process With Regard To Product Quality and Cost
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Abstract
The diaphragm forming process used for the cost ef®cient production of thermoplastic composite components has been experimentally
investigated. The process has been optimized with regard to product quality and cost. For the process optimization a new generic concept is
introduced. The proposed concept involves quality and cost sensitivity analyses by considering the process parameters as variables. For
deriving relations between process parameter variation and component quality features, as well as between process parameter variation and
component costs, an extensive experimental parametric study was made. For the investigation, the thermoplastic composite APC-2/AS4 was
used. The manufactured parts were different, aircraft structure like, simple shapes. Cost estimation relationships were established by using
the activity based cost concept. Using the derived empirical relations for the quality and cost sensitivity analyses, the developed process
optimization concept could be implemented. The investigation presented the need for the evolution of the diaphragm forming technique into
a new `cold' diaphragm forming technique. To evaluate the `new' technique, a testing facility on experimental (laboratory) scale was
devised. Simple shape parts from the thermoplastic Borealis PP/E-glass were manufactured with satisfactory quality. The cost for producing
components using the cold diaphragm forming technique was estimated and it was found to be signi®cantly lower compared to the cost for
producing the same components using the autoclave or conventional diaphragm forming techniques. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: E. Forming; E. Prepreg; E. Thermoplastic resin; Cost ef®ciency
e.g. Ref. [5]. Cheaper thermoplastic composites, which also increase manufacturability and to improve the component
have a lower melting point, such as glass ®ber reinforced quality, several modi®cations were made, e.g. in Refs.
polypropylene (PP) and polyamide (PA) have been antici- [5,16,19,22]. The process is illustrated schematically in
pated as promising alternatives to increase the use of Fig. 1 and refers to the modi®cation in Refs. [5,19]. In the
thermoplastic composites in the transportation sector [12]. studies in Refs. [5,17,19] the technique is referred to as
This seems to be the case for the automotive industry [13] superplastic forming and corresponds to a single diaphragm
but not for aircraft components where composites of higher forming technique. For implementing this technique,
performance are required. As a consequence of the increas- thermoplastic prepregs or organic plates are ®xed over a
ing use of thermoplastic composites in the automotive female inner mold, which is placed in the heating chamber.
industry, techniques such as matched die forming, hydro- The heating chamber consists of the upper mold, which
forming and diaphragm forming have attracted considerable involves also the heating elements, and of the lower mold,
attention, e.g. [14±24], although their applicability is which provides the place for the changeable female inner
limited to small parts of relative simple geometry. mold. A polymeric backing material is properly ®xed over
The study in Ref. [6] has demonstrated that improving the upper surface of the prepregs such that the chamber is
the cost ef®ciency of thermoplastic components for both tightly separated into two parts. Heat is applied through the
aerospace and automotive sector, can be made manageable heating elements. After the composite material has been
when reducing the component manufacturing costs; depend- heated to the processing temperature, pressure is applied
ing on the case, manufacturing costs may contribute up to to the upper surface of the backing material using inert
80% of the total cost of the component. gas while vacuum is provided to the lower female part of
In this work results of an investigation for producing the mold. The lower female part of the mold serves also as
thermoplastic composite components cost ef®ciently are the lower backing material. Once the component is formed
presented. The diaphragm forming technique is optimized and consolidated the temperature is decreased to the
to obtain minimum cost for a speci®ed quality. For the desirable rate to obtain a solid component, which can be
optimization a new generic concept is introduced. Optimi- removed from the mold.
zation has been based on an extensive experimental para-
metric study on the diaphragm forming technique [14], as it 2.2. Materials
was modi®ed in the studies in Refs. [5,16,17,19,20]. Appli-
cation of this concept has driven the development of a new The main part of the investigation has been carried
cold diaphragm forming technique for producing thermo- out for the thermoplastic matrix composite carbon ®ber
plastic composite components cost ef®ciently. For realizing reinforced PEEK. Thermoplastic composite aircraft
the new technique an experimental facility was devised and components have been produced up to-date using almost
examples of simple shapes were produced. Good results and explicitly this material [3±5], which also belongs to the
essential cost reduction were achieved. candidates for use in the new supersonic civil transport
aircraft. However, the material is very expensive and
has a melting temperature of 350 8C, which yields to
2. Experimental investigation long and expensive component process cycles. For the
present work the material was delivered in the form of
2.1. The diaphragm forming technique prepregs with 60 vol%. carbon ®bers and a nominal
thickness of 0.125 mm as well as in the form of
The technique was ®rst introduced in Ref. [14]. To woven roving with nominal thickness of 0.5 mm. For
S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470 461
Fig. 2. Experimentally derived matrix displacement: (a) concentric graphite circles before forming, (b) geometry of graphite contours after forming.
462 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Table 3
Qualitative impact of the variation of the manufacturing process parameters on the quality of the components
insensitive to the cooling rate. The cooling rate limitation is the analysis the ANSYS-FE code was used. The produced
set by the requirement to avoid distortion during cooling. sample is shown in Fig. 6.
Therefore, the cooling rate has not been considered as a
variable in the present investigation. It was kept constant
to an average value of approximately 10 8C/min for all 3. Process optimization concept with regard to
performed tests. component quality and cost
The qualitative impact of the variation of the manu-
facturing process parameters on the quality of the produced 3.1. Concept
samples is summarized in Table 3.
The results of the above parametric study were The empirical quality sensitivity analysis presented above
utilized to produce a rib of the horizontal stabilizer of led to components with suf®cient quality with regard to
a small aircraft. For producing the rib C/PEEK in a [90, speci®c quality objectives. Yet, the produced component
2452, 90, 452, 0]s lamination was used. Rib lamination is not optimized from the viewpoint of component cost.
and dimensions have resulted from a full Finite Element With the aim to manufacture products of a speci®ed quality
(FE) analysis of the horizontal stabilizer and subsequent with minimum cost, a generic concept has been developed.
design optimization to the total mass of the structure. For Following this concept, both manufacturing process ¯ow
and process parameters are considered to be variable.
They can be de®ned to obtain minimum cost for certain
quality objectives. Quality objectives may include mechan-
ical properties, dimensional tolerances, surface appearance,
etc.
To establish relations between process parameter varia-
tion and product quality, a quality sensitivity analysis has
to be ®rstly made. To this scope, quality limits have to be set
to satisfy the component performance objectives and
further component quality speci®cations. Models relating
the quality features to the process parameters are rare.
Thus, the in¯uence of each process parameter variation on
the component quality features can be derived by utilizing
historical data, available at the manufacturing facility, or
experimentally, when the investigation is performed at a
laboratory scale. These data provide the input to formulate
empirical expressions between process parameter variation
and quality characteristics. With regard to these relations the
Fig. 6. Characteristic APC-2/AS4 rib-like sample produced using process parameters may be categorized to variable, i.e. para-
diaphragm forming technique. meters which can be varied within certain ranges without
S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470 465
affecting the quality limits, and invariable, i.e. parameters 3.2. Optimization of the diaphragm forming technique
which cannot be varied without affecting quality. Classi®-
cation of the process parameters to variable and invariable For the optimization of the diaphragm forming tech-
depends on the manufacturing process and/or on the quality nique, the quality sensitivity analysis presented in
objectives. Section 2.4 has been utilized. Using these results,
The quality functions are valid only for a certain manu- empirical relations between process parameter variation
facturing process, component and type of composite and quality features were derived. Accordingly, the process
material. However, for reducing experimental effort, the parameters have been categorized to variable, i.e. to para-
required quality functions are not derived for a certain meters that can be varied without affecting the quality limits
component but it suf®ces to derive them for a family of and invariable, i.e. parameters that affect the quality
relative components, i.e. components that have comparable features.
dimensions and degree of complexity and are produced With regard to mentioned results, invariable is the para-
using the same manufacturing process [6]. Thus, for a meter forming temperature
T 380 8C: Variable within
family of relative components the variable process para- certain limits are the parameters pressure (.10 bar), con-
meters and consequently the respective quality functions solidation time (.5 min) and cooling rate (between 10 and
do not depend directly on the component but they depend 600 8C/min). Finally, free variable is the parameter of heat-
on the material features, which are relevant for the certain ing rate. Following the quality sensitivity analysis, cost
manufacturing process (e.g. forming process temperature, sensitivity analysis was also made by applying the activity
applicable cooling rate, etc.). Based on the above considera- based cost concept. With regard to this methodology, the
tions, quality sensitivity analysis is made to obtain the diaphragm forming process was divided to the sub-
permissible variation ranges of the process parameter processes (activities) shown in Fig. 7. Notice that the auto-
values, which still satisfy speci®c quality characteristics. clave process, which due to the high quality of the produced
Within the derived range of parameter values, the selec- components might be interpreted as a reference process for
tion of optimized process parameters values with regard to all techniques that include heating and pressurizing the
product quality and cost can be made manageable by material in an oven, can be divided to same activities of
relating the variation of the forming process parameters to Fig. 7. The analysis has shown that, with the exception of
the component manufacturing costs. In Ref. [6], a metho- sub-process A, the dominant cost driving factor for all
dology was developed to obtain the cost of the component activities of Fig. 7 is the duration of the relevant activity.
under consideration already during the early design phase It was also found that the contribution of the sub-processes
by rationalizing industrial experience into mathematical B±E to the component cost increases linearly with time. As
expressions. To this scope, cost estimation relationships an example of the performed cost sensitivity analysis, the
(CERs) were established by using the activity based cost calculated cost contribution of the sub-processes A±E to
concept. To formulate CERs cost drivers were ®rstly the total cost of a 80 £ 80 £ 2 mm 3 APC-2/AS4 plate manu-
de®ned. The implemented cost drivers are quantities such factured using the diaphragm forming technique and the
as the man time, the machine time, etc. The CERs estab-
lished in Ref. [6] relate empirically the cost drivers for each
separate activity of the entire manufacturing process
directly to the component ®nal cost. It includes an indirect
relation between process parameters and component costs.
In the present work, the cost drivers are formulated as
functions of the process parameters. For example, the
cost driver `process time' is formulated as a function of
the process parameters forming temperature, heating
rate and cooling rate. This function is then related to
the component cost. It yields to direct relations between
process parameters and component costs. The obtained
relations are also applicable to families of relative
components like the CERs in Ref. [6]. After establish-
ing the relations of the process parameters to both qual-
ity characteristics and component cost, optimization of
the process parameters with regard to component quality
and cost can be made. As it is shown in Section 3.2 the
proposed process optimization may require technological
modi®cations of the manufacturing facility itself in order
to enable the implementation of the optimized process Fig. 7. Sub-processes of the diaphragm forming process for the cost
parameters. sensitivity analysis.
466 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470
Fig. 8. Contribution of the sub-processes A±E to the total cost of an Fig. 9. Process cycle of an 80 £ 80 £ 2 mm 3 APC-2/AS4 plate using auto-
80 £ 80 £ 2 mm 3 APC-2/AS4 plate. clave and diaphragm forming technique.
autoclave, are displayed in Fig. 8. The ®gure includes also production of components cost ef®cient, heating and cooling
the cold diaphragm forming, which will be discussed in time have to be reduced as much as possible. In classical
Section 3.3. It can be seen that the cost of the plate manu- autoclaves and diaphragm forming facilities, the increase of
factured using a diaphragm forming facility does not exceed heating and cooling rate is hindered by certain technological
55% of the cost of the same plate manufactured in the auto- limits, which refer to the heating principle, i.e. forced
clave. This appreciable cost difference results from the convection by heating in an oven with circulation of air or
following features of the two processes under consideration. inert gas.
The process time in the autoclave is about 3±4 times the
process time for diaphragm forming. In addition, in the 3.3. Study of the heating system
latter process the activities C and E of Fig. 7, do not
exist and the activity D is much shorter. Activities C An extensive study of the heating problem of thermo-
and E are making the autoclave process much more plastic matrices has been made in Ref. [29]. In the present
labor intensive. The labor time in the autoclave process work, for developing an ef®cient heating system, a simpli-
is in the order of 30±40% of the total process time ®ed engineering approximation of heating a thermoplastic
compared to similar values for the diaphragm forming composite specimen by forced convection and infrared
process, which is, however, a 3±4 times shorter process. It radiation, has been considered to be suf®cient. A ¯at circular
is also remarkable that the price for a small autoclave is APC-2/AS4 plate of a certain thickness was taken. The
about 10 times the price for the diaphragm forming facility lower part and the circumference of the specimen were
of Fig. 1. The calculations in Fig. 8 do not account for this considered insulated, i.e. adiabatic. The upper part of the
fact. plate acts as heat receiver. For the analysis a limit for
With the aim to minimize the cost of the diaphragm form- temperature differences between upper and lower surface
ing process, one should notice that activities A and B are of the plate of 5 8C was set. This value is realistic for prac-
related to the material and its preparation to the proper tical application in order to avoid strong matrix ¯ow velo-
dimensions for the component and do not depend on the city gradients during forming. For the heating study, the
manufacturing process. Thus, the activity, which is related composite material properties were taken constant. They
to the process itself and contributes signi®cantly to the were determined as described in Ref. [28]. Compared in
total component cost, is activity D. As Fig. 9 shows, the Fig. 10 is the time required to heat the APC-2/AS4 specimen
diaphragm forming process duration and, hence, the compo- to the forming temperature of 380 8C by convection against
nent cost will be minimized when the heating and cooling the time required when using infrared radiation. For the
time are minimized. On the other hand, the performed qual- calculations, it has been assumed that when heating by
ity sensitivity analysis has shown that the process para- convection, the air of the oven has already reached the
meters heating rate and, depending on the thermoplastic forming temperature of the composite. The above assump-
matrix, cooling rate do not affect the component quality tion neglects the heating time of the air, which depending on
and can be considered as variable. Thus, for making the the oven dimensions, can be in the order of hours. The time
S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470 467
Table 4
Optimized process parameters for a PP/E-glass component using the `cold'
diaphragm forming technique
Fig. 14. Measured dimensional stability of a sample produced with the cold diaphragm forming facility.
produced components is still needed to better validate the radiation heating system. It leads to the minimization of
proposed technique. heating time and consequently, minimization of costs,
without affecting the component quality. An experimental,
laboratory scale, cold diaphragm forming facility has been
4. Conclusions manufactured; it was used to produce thermoplastic com-
posite parts from PP-E/glass. The obtained results are very
An extensive experimental investigation of the promising.
diaphragm forming for the cost ef®cient production of
thermoplastic composite components was made. For the
investigation the thermoplastic APC-2/AS4 was used. A Acknowledgements
quality analysis was made and optimized process para-
meters were derived empirically. A generic concept for The bulk of the experimental work described here was
optimizing manufacturing processes with regard to product performed at Hellenic Aerospace Industry during the
quality and cost has been proposed. The introduced concept involvement of the ®rst author in the BRITE project RI
involves product quality sensitivity analysis and product 1B-091 (D) and the EURAM project MA1E-0067. The
cost sensitivity analysis. The former is made to ful®ll cost sensitivity analysis is based on the results of the
quality features required to meet component performance BRITE-EURAM II project BRE2.CT92-0169. The authors
objectives. The latter is based on evaluation of historical would like to thank the European Commission for funding
component production data and the activity based account- these projects. Thanks are also due to the Hellenic General
ing method. The concept was applied to optimize the Secretariat for Research and Technology for supporting
diaphragm forming technique. A major modi®cation of the development of the cold diaphragm forming facility as
the technique to a new cold diaphragm forming facility well as to the Product Department of Philips Lighting SA
has been proposed. The modi®cation includes an infrared Hellenic for the supply of radiation lamps.
470 S.G. Pantelakis, E.A. Baxevani / Composites: Part A 33 (2002) 459±470