Chapter 1017

"We generally do not call it AFP, but NB series automatic carbon fiber laying machine."

Zhuang Jianye has a modest smile and a gentle manner. He doesn't have the same feeling that the east wind blows to the sky. However, when he heard this, he was shocked.

Automatic carbon fiber placement machine is called automatic fiber placement in English, abbreviated as AFP, which is also the abbreviation of automatic fiber placement machine.

It is mainly used for laying and forming of aircraft, rocket, missile and other aircraft or carbon fiber composite materials with complex curved surface of aircraft.

It belongs to the most high-end core equipment in aerospace manufacturing field.

Because of this, even though carbon fiber composites were born for nearly 40 years, many countries continue to apply them to various aerospace products.

But not many countries can really apply this new material well.

This is like mahjong everyone can play, but really can win every card in the expert rare is a truth, its itself also has the high and low difference, strong and weak points.

The same is true for the practical application of carbon fiber composite materials and the manufacturing of molded products.

The lowest level is to use the prefabricated carbon fiber composite fabric produced by the carbon fiber composite material factory, use the epoxy resin as the adhesive, according to the shape of the mold, manually apply and compact layer by layer, and then send it into the hot press pouring molding.

The second level is the carbon fiber composite automatic winding machine, which was born in the 1970s. It is mainly used for the manufacture of long-range ballistic missile body, so as to reduce the overall structural weight of the missile and improve the payload.

The C-4 submarine launched ballistic missile, D-5 submarine launched ballistic missile, m-45 submarine launched ballistic missile and M-51 submarine launched ballistic missile under development of the United States all adopt the automatic filament winding process to produce the missile body.

However, although the carbon fiber composite automatic winding machine can produce regular round parts such as the missile body, the plane parts such as the lining plate in the single body, the wing, tail and rudder of the aircraft can not be manufactured, and the carbon fiber fabric needs to be laid layer by layer manually.

Let's not say how expensive the labor cost is, nor mention the error rate of labor, let's say that the leftover materials of carbon fiber fabric will be cut off when laying, and the scrap rate is not a small number.

So since the 1980s, Europe and the United States have adopted automatic carbon fiber composite belt layer auxiliary machine tool, abbreviated as automatic auxiliary belt machine, abbreviated as ATL, as the automatic processing equipment of aerospace plane plate, to replace manual production.

The core of the equipment is the auxiliary head of the front-end machine tool, which is a specialized belt laying equipment integrating belt material transportation, heating, pressure and sticking, shearing and re sending.

It is with this kind of equipment that we can complete all the laying, adhesion, shearing, pressing, molding and other processes that need to be manually participated in before, except for the hot press grouting reinforcement.

Moreover, because of the automation of automatic auxiliary belt machine, the efficiency of processing carbon fiber parts with this kind of equipment is doubled.

Generally speaking, the average production rate of manual laying is 0.5 ~ 1.2 KGH, and the production rate of 20 KGH can be achieved by using automatic auxiliary belt laying machine, which is 20 times of that of manual laying.

As for accuracy, not to mention, the most skilled laying workers can only achieve an error of plus or minus 3 mm, while the automatic auxiliary belt machine can achieve an error of plus or minus 1.3 mm.

In terms of consumables, the average cost of manual laying is 35%, while the loss of automatic auxiliary belt machine is only 5%, which is absolutely worthwhile for the carbon fiber composite material with an average price of 280 US dollars per kilogram.

It has many advantages. As soon as it came out, the automatic auxiliary belt machine quickly became the favorite of European and American aviation giants, and was quickly applied to practical production, such as the vertical tail of Airbus A330, the wings and rudders on both sides of Boeing 777, the flecks of F-22 and F-18 fighters, and so on.

However, although the automatic auxiliary belt machine is good, it's OK to be a plane part, but the complex surface can't be played. There are many O-shaped parts, C-shaped parts, radome, nose and other complex surfaces on aircraft and spacecraft that need to be streamlined.

Therefore, European and American engineers will combine the automatic winding machine with the automatic auxiliary belt machine, and make use of the multi axis linkage and numerical control foundation in the mechanical field to create a more advanced automatic wire laying machine with the strongest adaptability so far.

In order to solve the laying processing of complex curved surface structure of carbon fiber composites on aircraft and spacecraft.

In this regard, Boeing took the lead in the United States. In the mid-1980s, it developed an automatic wire laying machine that can be used in practice. By the end of the 1980s, Boeing transferred the technology to 3I company of the United States, making it commercialized. So far, the automatic wire laying machine, the most advanced processing equipment for carbon fiber composites, has been monopolized by the United States.

As a result, since the 1990s, Boeing, Loma, Norge and other aerospace giants have been able to increase the use of carbon fiber composites in aircraft without fear, regardless of whether they will be unable to process because of the deconstruction shape, because the Americans have made a breakthrough in manufacturing technology in this respect, and they can do whatever they want.

What Boeing 777, Boeing 787, F-22, B-2 want to build.In contrast, Europe is not so free. They only stay in the stage of automatic auxiliary belt machines, especially Spain and Italy. The technology and experience of these two countries in gantry automatic auxiliary belt machines are even better than those of the United States. Unfortunately, they are left behind by the United States in automatic wire laying machines, so they are always half beaten by the United States in aviation manufacturing.

Russia, including the Soviet Union before its disintegration, is not as good as Europe and the United States in carbon fiber composite materials, and its professional processing equipment can not keep up. It has long been abandoned. At present, it only has automatic winding machine for the production of long-range missiles.

The situation in China is similar to that in Russia. There are only a few automatic winding machines, which can realize the automatic production of long-range missile bodies. Almost 100% of the places where carbon fiber composite materials are needed are produced manually. Not only the efficiency is low, the yield is not high, not to mention the total cost.

More importantly, the production cycle is long.

Among other things, it only takes two operators and three working days to produce a F-22 composite vertical tail in the United States, while it takes four eight person teams and three shifts in a week to produce a Su-27 horizontal tail that is a fraction of the vertical tail in China.

Two operators in three working days vs four 8-person teams in three shifts for one week

it is clear at a glance which is better or worse.

It is precisely because of such a huge advantage that the international aerospace industry calls the automatic wire laying machine the aerospace hegemony, because once you have such equipment, you can have an unparalleled technological advantage in the aerospace manufacturing field.

Now, only the United States has such hegemony. In other words, only the United States can win once at the mahjong table, and other people don't even have a chance to win.

Lao Wei, as an expert specializing in the research of aerospace application and production in the Academy of Military Sciences, thought that he had no chance with this kind of aerospace hegemony in his whole life. As a result, listening to Zhuang Jianye's saying, Lao Wei keenly felt that his country seemed to be able to play mahjong, but he was not sure. So he trembled carefully and asked: "Xiaozhuang, do you really make an automatic decision What about the wire laying machine? "

Zhuang Jianye nodded sincerely: "yes, would you like to have a look together?"