New concepts for a flexible and industrialized production process for FRP-based transport infrastructure components

Using Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) have become a fast growing matter in new construction structural components. First transport infrastructures, e.g., road and pedestrian bridges are built out of such components, today already made manually in manufactory workshops. The cooperative EC funded project, TRANS-IND - New Industrialized Construction Process for transport infrastructures based on polymer composite components, shifts from existing manual approaches to industrialization concepts. It targets a cost-effective integrated construction process that will enable the maximum capability of components for transport infrastructures using polymer based materials (carbon fiber, glass fiber, etc.) as well as to industrialize the whole construction process of the FRP components. This paper presents the different planning activities for the conceptual design of the off-site industrialization process and a detailed description of each planning phase and their related planning activities. First the paper surveys important theoretical basic approaches to define the fitting conceptual design of the off-site industrialization process. Further the infrastructure components to be manufactured and the required manufacturing processes are introduced. Subsequently for each infrastructure component, generic production structures are assigned and evaluated. The results are specific models of planned production areas, logistics as well as rough and final layouts for the factory.