At the JECWorld exhibition as early as 2015, a large-scale 3D printed composite layup mold attracted a lot of attention. It was developed by the Plateau Composites Technology Center at the University of Southern Brittany in France, with the goal of creating components as quickly as possible. This 3D printed mold combines additive manufacturing (abbreviated as "AM"), robotic automated fiber placement (abbreviated as "AFP") and other processing technologies. This concept compresses the overall time for component design, tooling manufacturing, robot programming, and component layering.
　　 Professor Yves Grohens of the university said: His team and PSA Peugeot Citroen have cooperated on the roof components of the 208 demonstration model. Participating partners include:
　　 Robot system supplier Coriolis Composites Technology Company;
　　 SMM company, the company uses additive technology to manufacture tooling.
　　 This idea originated from CAD virtual parts in stl, igs or other source file formats, which are compatible with 3D printing machines and automated strip placement programming. Using the CAD file of the part, the design and shape of the mold are developed. Then, SMM company set about printing it. On SMM's large Fortus900FDM machine, the mold was printed out. At the same time, Coriolis has developed suitable component layering and AFP machine path planning.
　　 The Fortus900FDM additive manufacturing equipment provided by Stratasys has an effective construction space of approximately 1m3, and the total construction time is approximately 100h. Stratasys provided polycarbonate powder for the printing. Although there is no fiber reinforcement, it still achieves sufficient rigidity and thermal stability. Grohens said: Although this demonstration tooling uses polycarbonate, for actual production, it can be made of polyetherimide (PEI) Ultem material to meet the higher curing temperature and higher pressure of 180°C. Application requirements. For this demonstration mold, the actual curing temperature is limited to 140°C. The weight of the mold after printing is 14kg, and no type of processing is required. Then, immediately place the mold under the head of the Coriolis robot, and use a 6.5mm wide carbon fiber/epoxy prepreg tape to layer the parts.