JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #94 - January/February 2015 - 45

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Contact: christian.schillfahrt@unileoben.ac.at
Acknowledgements
This work is presented within the "ILMAS - Implementation
of the Liquid Infusion for Manufacturing of Aerospace Structures" project funded under the European Community's Seventh
Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) for the Clean Sky
Joint Technology Initiative under grant agreement no.: CSJUGAP-338413, which is greatly acknowledged.

Fig. 4: BraF process chain (source: Airbus Group Innovations)

min) [3]. Depending on the desired cross-sectional geometry,
further processing steps are needed, including cutting, draping
and binder fixation, that influence the overall efficiency of this
approach. To enhance mechanical properties, the process uses
uniaxial braiding to reduce fibre undulation, although this
lowers process efficiency as an additional braiding machine is
needed to produce the second braided fibre direction. Further
drawbacks are the laborious spool mounting of the braiding
machines, combined with a low spool capacity, and the high
effort required to convert this setup when changing preform
layup and geometry.

Conclusion
Various approaches for the automated manufacturing of profile preforms have been discussed and evaluated with respect
to selected process requirements, manufacturing parameters
and economic aspects. Comparing these different techniques,
the two continuous profile preforming concepts seem to be
the most suitable solutions to fulfil the given requirements.
They come along with the highest degree of efficiency as they
represent a clearly continuous way of preform manufacturing and show high flexibility in terms of layup, profile crosssection and curvature. Moreover, from an economic point of
view, these approaches are advantageous with regard to the
relatively low investment costs. n

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No94 January - February 2015 /

jec composites magazine 45

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JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #94 - January/February 2015

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