Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COMPASS (A data-driven remanufacturing process for sheet metal and thermoplastic composites)
Período documentado: 2024-01-01 hasta 2025-06-30
The latest Global Market Forecast of Airbus predicted a replacement of more than 15000 aircraft until 2040, with OEMs aiming to recycle at least 90% of the constituent materials, e.g. for carbon fibre composites. Similarly, the automotive industry has to fulfill requirements to recycle at least 85% of weight per vehicle. This goal has been reached and the target now is to make the re-use/recycling/recovery more efficient. To achieve this goal, different strategies are needed than those that are applied today: In the aerospace industry, only components with a remaining lifetime or a written recertification process by the OEM are adequately re-used as spare parts. The vast majority of the structural material (aluminium alloys) is shredded without separation and lose 90% of its value due to incompatible compositions when recycled. In the future the situation will be aggravated as more planes and cars made out of carbon and glass fibre composite materials will reach their end of life. Currently, 98% of these materials end up in landfills or are incinerated. Recycling at the end of life is made more difficult by 20 to 30 years of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operations, where new (possibly polluting) materials may have been added. While the documentation of repair work may exist, the e.g. digitized 3D information about repairs is not always readily available. This leads to the following problems: Scrapping of structural aircraft aluminium leads to a random mixture of several different, chemically incompatible alloys which have to be downgraded to lower quality cast alloys. For carbon fibre composites the separation of fibre and matrix (resin) is a chemically difficult process. If the type of resin is not known or if there is a mixture of different types of resin, recycling processes need to apply much harsher treatments and the fibres retain only 85% of their original tensile strength.
Thus, the technical objectives of COMPASS are:
• To develop reforming processes to remanufacture structural alloy parts and thermoplastic composite components without converting them to raw material and by considering the history of these components.
• To establish a digital component passport that manages the storage, updating and access to component data over a period of 20 to 30 years involving all actors along the entire, circular life cycle of the component.
• To develop a set of digital tools, sensors and data acquisition methods that enable data collection during the whole circular process and that allow an efficient re-manufacturing process.
The impact will be achieved through enabling a “shortcut” in the circular process that does not take the energy-intensive route over recycling at the level of raw materials. A key success factor will be to link up the digital passport with standard CAD design tools, so that the information becomes readily available and is updated along the whole process. More than 1.4M€ are planned by 2030 to cover implementation of prototypes in the production lines of tier-1 suppliers and OEMs.
Thus, the technical objectives of COMPASS are:
• To develop reforming processes to remanufacture structural alloy parts and thermoplastic composite components without converting them to raw material and by considering the history of these components.
• To establish a digital component passport that manages the storage, updating and access to component data over a period of 20 to 30 years involving all actors along the entire, circular life cycle of the component.
• To develop a set of digital tools, sensors and data acquisition methods that enable data collection during the whole circular process and that allow an efficient re-manufacturing process.
The impact will be achieved through enabling a “shortcut” in the circular process that does not take the energy-intensive route over recycling at the level of raw materials. A key success factor will be to link up the digital passport with standard CAD design tools, so that the information becomes readily available and is updated along the whole process. More than 1.4M€ are planned by 2030 to cover implementation of prototypes in the production lines of tier-1 suppliers and OEMs.
The first half of the project was dedicated to implementing the single process steps along the values chain. At this stage, the developments have been done individually, while the integration is planned for the second half of the project. Within the first reporting period the following main results have been achieved:
• The generic concept of digital product passport for supporting the reforming and MRO activities was established
• Development of the initial version of the sensor system for monitoring the lay-up process during the composite part manufacturing procedure.
• Development of the middleware software that facilitates the exchanges of data files – across organization borders.
• Developed prototype of the Remanufacturing process planner tool, for optimizing the usage of end-of-life components considering the products that should be made from them.
• Developed prototype of the Disassembly Assistant Tool, for supporting workers in recycling facilities to plan the dismantling process using augmented reality and highly accurate 3D reconstruction.
• Developed prototype of the Manual Repair Assistant Tool, to allow the automated tracking and localization of repair work done on a particular part and its transfer into a 3D CAD model.
• Developed prototype of the Sheet Metal Reforming Calculator Tool, for assessing and optimizing the suitability of a particular component for the remanufacturing process in view of the target part.
• Developed prototype of the 3D data acquisition tool, which enables the 3D mapping of the EoL parts
• Implementation of tamper-proof long-term data storage to enable the robustness and scalability of encryption technologies, which safeguard the data integrity of component passports
• Design and fabrication of tools for composite and sheet metal remanufacturing and initial tests of the reforming processes.
All these developments were demonstrated in a structured way, including the evaluation of the resulting parts, processes and prototypes at a technical and economic level.
• The generic concept of digital product passport for supporting the reforming and MRO activities was established
• Development of the initial version of the sensor system for monitoring the lay-up process during the composite part manufacturing procedure.
• Development of the middleware software that facilitates the exchanges of data files – across organization borders.
• Developed prototype of the Remanufacturing process planner tool, for optimizing the usage of end-of-life components considering the products that should be made from them.
• Developed prototype of the Disassembly Assistant Tool, for supporting workers in recycling facilities to plan the dismantling process using augmented reality and highly accurate 3D reconstruction.
• Developed prototype of the Manual Repair Assistant Tool, to allow the automated tracking and localization of repair work done on a particular part and its transfer into a 3D CAD model.
• Developed prototype of the Sheet Metal Reforming Calculator Tool, for assessing and optimizing the suitability of a particular component for the remanufacturing process in view of the target part.
• Developed prototype of the 3D data acquisition tool, which enables the 3D mapping of the EoL parts
• Implementation of tamper-proof long-term data storage to enable the robustness and scalability of encryption technologies, which safeguard the data integrity of component passports
• Design and fabrication of tools for composite and sheet metal remanufacturing and initial tests of the reforming processes.
All these developments were demonstrated in a structured way, including the evaluation of the resulting parts, processes and prototypes at a technical and economic level.
By midterm of the project the following results beyond the state of the art have been achieved:
Storing the qualitative data in the 3D CAD model. In the case of carbon fibre composite parts, it is necessary to store results of process monitoring (process deviations) in the 3D model, as well as NDT results coming from end-of-line inspection. This data needs to be quite detailed, to include the (exact) boundaries of defects or repair work, or the depth/layer in which the defect is located. Such option is now enabled within COMPASS project, where all the data acquired during the inspection procedures can be now embedded within the single CAD model, with aligned coordinate systems, which also allows advanced CAD data analysis such as defect location, distance measurements between multiple defects etc.
Design and manufacturing of the flattening tool specifically designed to geometrically adapt the complex and curved geometrical sections into a flat preform, for reshaping operations of the thermoplastic composites. The tool includes a robust metallic structure that holds the component during the heating and flattening process. One of its most innovative features is the integration of a modular infrared heating system, composed of independently controllable infrared lamps to follow the varying curvature and thickness of the composite parts, ensuring precise and localized heating.
Storing the qualitative data in the 3D CAD model. In the case of carbon fibre composite parts, it is necessary to store results of process monitoring (process deviations) in the 3D model, as well as NDT results coming from end-of-line inspection. This data needs to be quite detailed, to include the (exact) boundaries of defects or repair work, or the depth/layer in which the defect is located. Such option is now enabled within COMPASS project, where all the data acquired during the inspection procedures can be now embedded within the single CAD model, with aligned coordinate systems, which also allows advanced CAD data analysis such as defect location, distance measurements between multiple defects etc.
Design and manufacturing of the flattening tool specifically designed to geometrically adapt the complex and curved geometrical sections into a flat preform, for reshaping operations of the thermoplastic composites. The tool includes a robust metallic structure that holds the component during the heating and flattening process. One of its most innovative features is the integration of a modular infrared heating system, composed of independently controllable infrared lamps to follow the varying curvature and thickness of the composite parts, ensuring precise and localized heating.