Automatic In-Line Control and Correction of the Material Removal from CFRP Surfaces

Inline control is a type of measurement system that is mainly used as quality inspection, where the inspection is integrated directly to the production process. Through the data obtained, product quality as well as the process and procedures can be improved, making it cost effective. The current industry standard for the removal and control of carbon composites in repair processes still practices time-consuming manual grinding and observation, depending considerably on the knowledge, skill, and work performance of the personnel. The removal process is ergonomically unfavorable and has a lot of health issues for the worker. there fore a standardization and automation with quality assurance is necessary, also with a considerable time advantage. Standard in-line control technologies for the repair are not available on the market due to missing real time correction of the produced complex surfaces. A new approach for removing surfaces of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) is under development at Fraunhofer IFAM in Stade. For the automated removal of the damaged laminate (scarfing) vacuum suction blasting (VSB) is used. But, the control of this material removal is still based on visual inspection of static measurements after the removal process. This research presents an automated inline control and correction strategy for the vacuum suction blasting (VSB) process based on laser line triangulation. Important parameters affecting this strategy such as real time issues, the topography of the removed CFRP surface, and measurement accuracies for the removal depth will be discussed.