CSI Mobile Factory

Composite Systems, Inc.

Aerospace, Automotive, Industrial and Marine Robotic Systems Integration

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Composite Systems, Inc. provides "turn-key" solutions for the aerospace, automotive, industrial and marine industries worldwide....

Composite Systems Inc. "Mobile Factory Complex System"

The Mobile Factory Complex has been designed for both land and off-shore use.

Land Based Factory

Floating Mobile Factory

CSI Mobile Factory System Features

Building Construction

The mobile facility is just that, mobile. It has been designed to be assembled and disassembled and placed within the ‘shipping containers’ that make up its perimeter walls. We have designed the facility with standard ‘high cube’ containers 40’ – 53’ in length, depending on the trucks and ships that will be transporting the system. Quantity of containers will be based upon the final building size. The facility length and width being modular, offers both a blade construction area and blade finish area. This includes work zones for the fabrication, machining and assembly of the tower and turbine.

The perimeter of the building is constructed from FRP panels. These panels are uniquely constructed from a proprietary mold system that allows us to fabricate the inside and outside of the panel in one operation. This mold system has been designed to be ‘interactive’ with our robotic PFE technology, eliminating the need for people.

The panels and building components were conceived to provide a solution for rapid manufacturing of ‘modular classrooms’ for schools. Subsequently, the Mobile Factory will meet building codes in a variety of locations globally.

The Mobile Factory can be configured for ‘remote location’ setup or for conventional location setup. Conventional location set up would be where water, electrical power and telecommunications are present at the wind farm site. With respects to the ‘remote location’ setup, the system may be set up in several configurations, depending upon cost and availability of various forms of fuel and service organizations.

The Mobile Factory may employ a diesel generator, requiring the availability of diesel fuel and ‘portable’ fuel tanks or cells be brought to the site. In addition, to reduce the demand for this energy, solar panels may be ‘imbedded’ within the roof panels in concert with ‘translucent’ natural light sources and imbedded light fixtures built into the panels. Solar would be used to power lights, primarily. An electrical panel acts as a substation for all of the process equipment.

Propane or natural gas will be used to heat the facility from heating units supplied with the system. The quantity of units and size will be determined based upon the size of the facility chosen. Cooling of the facility will be performed by industrial water fed chillers located throughout the facility.

Restroom facilities will be a permanent feature of one of the containers, complete with water tanks, water heater and waist holding tanks. Showers and locker rooms are an option to the environment. A septic pumping service will be required to pump the tanks on a regular basis.

A very important benefit to the Mobile Factory is that it eliminates 25 – 30% of the cost associated with the blade construction, namely, transportation costs. Because the Mobile Factory is shipped and set up at the wind farm site, all shipping costs for blades constructed, regardless of size, is saved.

Process Equipment

Within the containers will be engineering and operation offices that will be set up once the facility has been erected. All process equipment is permanently housed within the shipping containers.

Unique to the Mobile Factory, and the reason that no special concrete footings will be required, is CSI’s carbon fiber gantry robot system. The entire superstructure of the gantry system is constructed from carbon fiber materials. This technology has been developed to reduce the ‘mass in motion’ (weight) of the system, significantly reducing the size of the drive systems, thus reducing costs to manufacture.

The x-axis rails are attached to the container tops and are coupled together, creating the gantry robot ‘runway’ for the system. Stanchion height is based upon the final height of the building design.

CSI’s robot technology differs in many respects to ‘single purpose use’ of conventional robots. First, the process requires only 4 to 5 people per shift to operate. These personnel will be trained to manage and operate all aspects of the facility.

The heart of the robot system is the PFE (Precision Feed Endeffector) technology. This patented system offers high speed, accurate automated layup of composite materials (both unidirectional and woven goods) in any one of three (3) primary categories, namely ‘dry placement’ (typical to RTM, VARTM, etc.), “wet layup’ and prepreg layup. For the prepreg materials, one of the containers will be configured as a freezer.

The PFE device family consists of standard widths ranging from 6.00” – 60.00”. The PFE devices will be housed within the provided ‘tool crib’ that will also support the following process equipment:

PFE family of devices – selected by the customer based upon the materials used in the layup. Reloading to the devices is performed at the tool crib by factory personnel, while the device is offline.
Machining spindle and associated tooling – Used in the machining of the plugs (composite in makeup) on site
Sanding and polishing – force sensed feedback system allowing for 3D sanding and polishing of plugs, molds and finished parts.
Mold release agent and gelcoat application system – provides for the automated application of these materials without the use of a paint booth, as the robot system is supported by a ‘dust extraction system’ vacuuming the floating materials from the air as the application is being performed. The vacuum system also addresses debris from the machining of the plugs.
Robot grippers – a series of unique grippers will be provided for the robot allowing the handling and placement of core and ‘imbed’ components during the layup regime. These products and materials will be supplied to the robot from ‘magazines’ located within the reach of the gantry robot, allowing of the sequential placement of them in concert with the layup regime.
All tool systems housed within the tool crib will utilize ‘quick change’ tooling, allowing for ‘on-the-fly’ tool change during the layup regime, without human intervention.

Additional floor based (track) robots may be integrated to the process for the preparation (cutting – water jet, ultrasonic) of the core components and imbeds used within the blade makeup.

Second, three (3) mobile gantry cranes will be provided that run along the floor on guide rails attached to the floor and span the width of the inside dimension (between the container walls), providing 10 tons of lift each. These cranes will assist in the assembly of the blade halves and core superstructure placement. They will transport the finished blade outside for site equipment to perform installation.

Third, the entire system is offline programmable. The robot controller, offline programming software and individual process tools are all PC based (XP Professional). This allows for the transfer of engineering data to be performed seamlessly to the systems’ host HMI (human machine interface). Solid models of a blade design may be sent to the system via email or other processes, linking engineering to the factory floor. Because the plugs are machined by the system on site, changes may be made at anytime during the plug machining process, as the plug materials allow for adding in areas where errors are made or changes in design are required. This system also allows for changes to be made in the layup schedule.

This process will serve both the design and machining of the plugs and subsequent manufacturing of the molds as well as the manufacturing and monitoring of the process for making the blades themselves. This will be key to the refinement of speed (cycle time) associated with the layup process, as resin systems may be configured with ‘time elements’, as the robotic system will provide for repeatable cycle times.

Summary

The Mobile Factory is priced based upon the size and final process equipment features selected. Setup of the facility will require 45 - 60 days on site, depending upon facility size, requiring one 10,000lb forklift, (1) 10 ton crane with 100’+ (ft of mast) for the erection process. These personnel should be the operations people to run the facility. CSI will oversee the setup of the facility and facilities process training.

Once engineering data has been sent to the system, plugs and molds can be machined, fabricated and ready for production within 30 – 45 days, depending upon blade size. The Mobile Factory may, at any time, be increased in size by simply adding modules (containers).