The potential impact of FALCON is linked with its key technological results and the way they combine a number of different innovations with press-forming and curing.
RTM makes possible to meet the large dimensional tolerances required by the piece at stake in FALCON, especially in thickness, as it involves a complicated adjustment and clamping between aluminium cores and steel lid and base. In our case, HiTape will be used. This combination being relatively new. The piece has a frame thickness of 7mm and a rib thickness of 3.5mm which means that the accumulation of all thicknesses when making the RTM can involve thicknesses of up to 30mm. This is of importance since it opens new possibilities to various industries and part sizes, not exclusively aeronautics or the parts derived from the FALCON curing tooling.
For dimensioning the support structure and the mould, so they withstand without deforming the maximum 8bar pressure, it is necessary to add the 180 ºC curing of the HiTape and the possible exothermic peak. FALCON’s added innovations regarding temperature control are of vital importance in ensuring faster manufacturing speeds while high quality is maintained.
As indicated, one main advantage associated to the FALCON tooling system is related to the time cycle required for the complete production of a final part. In FALCON, the production processes are monitored and controlled in real time as part of a closed-loop, avoiding errors in the dimensional and thermal aspects of the production. Together with the one-shot approach everything adds to the energy savings.
As suggested earlier, FALCON focus is not exclusively centered in press-forming and curing techniques, but in the way other innovations – software, control, monitoring, modularity, ALM technologies – can be added to the former and take classic manufacturing to the next level. In this regard, the servo-forming concept that the FALCON press-forming machine uses is relevant since it makes use of control data to actually correct the actuation of the press. In terms of robustness and repeatability FALCON shows clear advantages to other non-automated systems.
FALCON modularity and versatility permits an easy and cost effective adaptation to materials with new functionalities. FALCON will still be a reliable solution in the future.
The innovations provided by the FALCON tooling system allow for accurate and semi-automated manufacturing of medium sized parts of various thicknesses. As simple as it seems, this alone opens a fundamental path for exploitation in different industries.
