Patent Application
20080302500
The present embodiments of the disclosure relates to the field of manufacturing molded parts, in particular, the method and apparatuses related to making molds.
In a manufacturing system environment, where small numbers of repeatable molded parts are required (e.g., aerospace industry, rapid prototyping), typically individual molds are machined from billets using Numerically Controlled (NC) methods from a Computer Aided-Design (CAD) model or surface, or a plaster splash from a machined male tool. Numerically Controlled (NC) machines continue to play an important role in the machining of metal tools having 3-D contoured shapes for production or prototype applications. Many organizations still machine high density foam to close tolerances to fabricate a form onto which composite tooling may be made; this is a labor-intensive method, but still a viable approach for deep drawn objects such as fighter radomes, or helicopter tailbooms. These methods are expensive due to each part requiring its own mold. Modifications and minor changes to molded parts are common as a design matures, requiring new molds. These modifications may be expensive as a new mold and splash are needed; typically, this slows the design and manufacturing process. The cost of storing individual molds for archiving tool changes and later use is expensive and time consuming. If manufacturing is occurring in different physical geographical locations there is also the added cost and time of transporting molds.
In the 1990s, rapid tooling became popular using methods like Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Stereolithography (SLA); although this method was faster and more cost effective than conventional machined or touch composite tooling, it could not be used for production due to its low temperature polymer composition, physical size limitations, high frangibility and poor ability to hold required tolerances.
Electron Beam Curing (EBC) was developed to speed the process of curing composites, but still relies heavily on traditional tooling. Currently, there are no disruptive tooling approaches for manufacturing advanced aerospace composite components, typically aerospace tooling costs approximately three times the production price of an aircraft, making it a large source of costs for the final product.
Illustrative embodiments of the disclosure mold differently shaped parts using the same mold-forming device, which is adjustable and allows for modifications of the mold. This embodiment may comprise a plurality of adjustable actuators fixed perpendicular to a base, and arranged in a matrix, the ends of the adjustable actuators not fixed to the base being free to move in a direction perpendicular to the base.
The mold may be created by taking the CAD data of a part to be molded, using the CAD data to compute adjustments to the plurality of adjustable actuators into positions that represent the surface of a mold for the part to be formed. A repeatable flexible caul plate may then be placed on top of the adjustable actuators to form a mold surface. Once the adjustable actuators are in position they may be adjusted by the mold-forming device for thermal expansion, composite part spring-back, and thickness of the material to be formed using the mold. In this embodiment the adjustable actuators may have a feedback system allowing the adjustable actuators to be calibrated and their positions determined. The determined positions of the adjustable actuators may be corroborated against the input data allowing for quality control of the mold-forming device. Once the position of the adjustable actuators is verified with the input data the adjustable actuators may be locked into position. The embodiment may then have power withdrawn from the device and the actuators will hold their position, providing a stable tooling surface, and allowing the mold to be reused in the set position for more than one molded part. In various embodiments, the mold-forming device may be mobile and may be maneuvered into a curing device such as an autoclave. The mold-forming device may be constructed in a modular form so that a plurality of mold-forming devices may be joined together allowing for the possibility of manufacturing larger molded parts. Storage of molds is no longer required as the data to create the mold using the mold-forming device is all that is required to be stored. The data may be sent to distant geographical locations that are in possession of an embodiment of the mold-forming device, allowing manufacturing to take place quickly and cheaply wherever the devices are located. Rapid prototyping and modification is possible as the mold of molded part can quickly and easily be adjusted using the new data of the adjusted part, allowing for individual molded part comparisons to be carried out in their application environment.
Embodiments of the disclosure will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Embodiments of the disclosure are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings.
Illustrative embodiments of the disclosure include, but are not limited to, methods, apparatuses, and articles of manufacture for a multiuse mold-forming device that may be electronically adjusted. Embodiments may contain a plurality of adjustable actuators fixed to a base, where the adjustable actuators are affixed perpendicular to the base. The adjustable actuators may be arranged in a matrix, where the adjustable actuator ends are opposite to the base end, are free to move, and are configurable. The mold-forming device may be mobile and contain a module capable of adjusting the adjustable actuators into a plurality of positions dependent upon input data coming from a CAD model or surface. The module adjusting the matrix arrangement of adjustable actuators may then allow the data from the CAD surface or solid model to position the adjustable actuator thereby configuring the top surface of the adjustable actuators to form the exact shape of the CAD surface to be tooled, this may be a male or female mold.
Various operations may be described as multiple discrete operations in turn, in a manner that may be helpful in understanding various embodiments; however, the order of description should not be construed to imply that these operations are order dependent.
The description may use perspective-based descriptions such as up/down, back/front, and top/bottom. Such descriptions are merely used to facilitate the discussion and are not intended to restrict the application of the embodiments.
The terms “coupled” and “connected,” along with their derivatives, may be used. It should be understood that these terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. Rather, in particular embodiments, “connected” may be used to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. “Coupled” may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact. However “coupled” may also mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other, but yet still cooperate or interact with each other.
For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “A/B” means A or B. For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “A and/or B” means “(A), (B), or (A and B).” For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “at least one of A, B, and C” means “(A), (B), (C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C).” For the purposes of the description, a phrase in the form “(A) B” means “(B) or (AB),” that is, A is an optional element.
The description may use the phrases, “various embodiments” “in an embodiment,” or “in embodiments,” which may each refer to one or more of the same or different embodiments. Furthermore, the terms “comprising,” “including,” “having,” and the like, as used with respect to embodiments as described in the present disclosure, are synonymous.
The base 105 of the mold-forming device may have a plurality of adjustable actuators 103 attached perpendicularly to the base 105 in the form of a matrix. The adjustable actuator base 111 may be fixed to the base 105 of the mold-forming device, the adjustable actuator 103 may be attached firmly holding the adjustable actuator perpendicular to the base 105 of the mold-forming device. In this embodiment, the adjustable actuators 103 are positioned as close together as possible to each other so that the top surface 113 of the adjustable actuators 103 may form a near contiguous surface.
CAD model data for a part or surface that may be molded by the device is input via the electronic interconnect module (not shown). The data may be computed using the module (not shown) into position data for the adjustable actuators 103. The computed adjustable actuator position data represents the position for each adjustable actuator 103 so that the plurality of adjustable actuators 103 may be configured into positions to represent a shape, or surface of a mold that will form the part described in the CAD model or surface data.
In this embodiment, to compute the positions for each adjustable actuator 103, the module that accepts the CAD model or surface data uses this data with one or more of the thermal expansion of the mold material, composite part spring-back of the mold, and thickness of the material to be formed using the mold.
Once the position data for each adjustable actuator 103 of the mold-forming device has been calculated, the module inputs the position data into the appropriate actuator driver which moves the adjustable actuator to the calculated position. Each adjustable actuator 103 is connected to an electronic feedback system (not shown) allowing the precise position of each adjustable actuator 103 to be determined, allowing the mold-forming device to verify the precise position of each of the adjustable actuators 103 for quality control. This may be accomplished automatically as the adjustable actuator's actual positions may be matched to the CAD model or surfaces computed positions, eliminating the need for Coordinate Measurement Mapping (CMM) or other tool inspection procedures. This feedback system allows quality control to be carried out automatically as each new CAD mold or surface data set is input into the mold-forming device, as the mold-forming device forms the mold.
In this embodiment, the adjustable actuators 103 are locked into position once the position of each adjustable actuator is verified with the CAD model or surface. The locked actuator allows the mold-forming device to be detached from any power source and the electronic interconnect module (not shown). The locked adjustable actuators may now hold their positions which form the shape of the mold representing the part described by the CAD model or surface. A repeatable flexible caul plate 115 may now be laid on the top surface 113 of the automatic actuators. This may be a highly ductile material that is flexible in all directions, e.g., a Teflon plate, thin aluminum, or high temperature rubber.
The mold-forming device may now have the mold-forming material laid on top of the caul plate and the mold-forming device maneuvered into a curing environment for the particular mold-forming material being used. The mold-forming device may be used to make copies of this part as necessary. The mold-forming device may hold its shape as the adjustable actuators 103 are locked into position. When a new mold shape is required the mold-forming device is reattached using the electronic interconnect module (not shown) to a device holding the CAD model or surface of the new shape. The process may be repeated for the new mold shape. If the original shape is required at some time in the future, the data can be re-input into the mold-forming device so the device can again reposition the adjustable actuator into the original positions allowing the original shape to be formed.
If more than one mold-forming device is required, block 210, to form the mold, one or more mold-forming devices as required, may be connected together. The mold-forming devices may have physical connectors that allow the mold-forming device to be locked together, block 202. This locking together may physically attach one mold-forming device to another mold-forming device, where a process to detach them may be required to separate the mold-forming devices from one another. This may allow the mold-forming devices to revert back to their singular state. Once locked together the one or more mold-forming devices form a larger mold-forming device required to mold a larger part, this may be because the mold to be formed is too large to be formed on one mold-forming device.
The CAD data of the mold, block 201, may be input into the mold-forming device through the electronic interconnect module, the data being input into a module containing computational logic 314 (shown in
The position data for each adjustable actuator 103 (shown in
In this embodiment of the disclosure, once the position of the adjustable actuators 103 (shown in
Once each of the adjustable actuator's positions has been verified, a flexible caul plate 115 (shown in
Mass storage 306 and memory 304 may be employed to store a working copy and a permanent copy of the programming instructions implementing one or more aspects of the above described teachings to practice the mold-forming device methods and apparatuses of the present disclosure, such as computational logic 314. The programming instructions may be implemented in assembler instructions supported by processor(s) 302 or high level languages, such as C, that may be compiled into such instructions.
The permanent copy of the programming instructions may be placed into mass storage 306 in the factory, or in the field, through, e.g., a distribution medium (not shown) or through communication interface 310 (from a distribution server (not shown)).
Mass storage 306 may contain actuator logic 316 and storage for position data 318 for each adjustable actuator. The actuator logic may be the logic required to convert surface or model data into actuator position data, computing where each individual adjustable actuator from the plurality of adjustable actuators arranged in a matrix should be positioned to represent the surface or model of the CAD data to be molded. Once each adjustable actuator position is calculated the position data may be stored in the position data storage 318. The adjustment of the adjustable actuators may require an actuator driver 320, each adjustable actuator may have its own instance of the actuator driver, the position data for each adjustable actuator stored in the position data 318 may be communicated to the actuator driver 320 via the bus 312. The actuator drivers 320 may then adjust the adjustable actuators to the computed position, allowing the plurality of adjustable actuators to form a surface with the end of adjustable actuators, the end being opposite to the end fixed to the base.
Referring more particularly to the drawings, embodiments of the disclosure may be described in the context of an aircraft manufacturing and service method 400 as shown in
Each of the processes of method 400 may be performed or carried out by a system integrator, a third party, and/or an operator (e.g., a customer), as indicated by the “X” in the grid to the right of the flow diagram of
As shown in
Apparatus and methods embodied herein may be employed during any one or more of the stages of the production and service method 400. For example, components or subassemblies corresponding to production process 408 may be fabricated or manufactured in a manner similar to components or subassemblies produced while the aircraft 502 is in service. Also, one or more apparatus embodiments, method embodiments, or a combination thereof may be utilized during the production stages 408 and 410, for example, by substantially expediting assembly of or reducing the cost of an aircraft 402. Similarly, one or more of apparatus embodiments, method embodiments, or a combination thereof may be utilized while the aircraft 502 is in service, for example and without limitation, to maintenance and service 416.
Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein for purposes of description of the preferred embodiment, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that a wide variety of alternate and/or equivalent implementations may be substituted for the specific embodiment shown and described without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Those with skill in the art will readily appreciate that the present disclosure may be implemented in a very wide variety of embodiments. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the embodiments discussed herein. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that this disclosure be limited only by the claims and the equivalents thereof.
