IN-SITU ASSESSMENT OF MANUFACTURING DEFECTS – A CONTRIBUTION TO INDUSTRY 4.0

Depending on the complexity of components, the manufacturing technology and the application high tolerance requirements are to be satisfied during manufacturing. However, these strict requirements can often not be met within the whole component by reasonable manufacturing time and effort. Within this context inevitable rework and rejections of components lead to unnecessary high manufacturing costs. One main objective of the EU-funded project ECOMISE is to minimize process costs by establishing the ability for an in-situ assessment of particular manufacturing defects in combination with an in-situ decision making for process adjustments. This assessment shall be performed with respect to the actual structural and mechanical effects already during the actual component manufacturing. This is achieved by performing in-situ virtual tests taking into account actual component deviations and therefore contributes to "Industry 4.0". In order to provide in-situ capabilities several technologies are developed and integrated into an overall manufacturing system. A database is created prior to the component manufacturing based on experimental and virtual material tests of laminates containing representative generic imperfections. This so-called Effects-of-Defects database (short EoD database) contains knock-down factors for the stiffness and strength properties of each individual layer within a laminate. To perform an efficient evaluation at the component level already during the production and to instantly derive corrective measures a comparison of online measurement data with the EoD database takes place. To this the online fibre measurement system provides fibre angles, fibre undulations, gaps and overlaps. The observed parameters are correlated to the corresponding knock-down factors, whereby the change of failure behaviour and load transfer due to the occurring imperfection can be represented. Surrogate models based on the EoD database enable an efficient determination of these knock-down factors during the actual manufacturing process.