Assembly to manufacture a roll of prepreg material
AssigneeThe Boeing Company
InventorsJack William Henry, Daniel Austin Charles, Aaron Ross Cowin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An assembly to manufacture a roll of prepreg material. The assembly includes a moving system for picking a sheet of prepreg material from a stack of sheets and moving the sheet along a feed path. An alignment system aligns a leading edge of the sheets with a trailing edge of a roll of the prepreg material. A welding system connects the sheet to the roll.
Claims20
An assembly to manufacture a roll of prepreg material, the assembly comprising:
- a tray;
- a feed path that extends from the tray;
- at least one pick roller positioned at the feed path, the at least one pick roller configured to rotate to pick a sheet of the prepreg material from the tray and to move the sheet along the feed path;
- a positioning bar that extends across the feed path downstream from the at least one pick roller, the positioning bar comprises an edge configured to contact against a leading edge of the sheet;
- and
- at least one welding shoe that locally heats a trailing edge of the roll and the leading edge of the sheet and forms a weld seam that joins the sheet in an overlapping arrangement with the roll.
An assembly to manufacture a roll of prepreg material, the assembly comprising:
- a controller comprising a control circuit, the controller configured to:
- rotate at least one pick roller and move a sheet of the prepreg material from a tray and along a feed path;
- position a positioning bar across the feed path to contact a leading edge of the sheet when the leading edge is overlapping with a trailing edge of the roll;
- determine an amount of overlap between the leading edge of the sheet and the trailing edge of the roll;
- and
- connect together the sheet and the roll with the leading edge of the sheet overlapping with the trailing edge of the roll.
An assembly to manufacture a roll of prepreg material, the assembly comprising:
- a controller comprising a control circuit, the controller configured to:
- rotate at least one pick roller that is in contact with a sheet and move the sheet along a feed path;
- contact a leading edge of the sheet against a positioning bar that extends across the feed path and stop the sheet with the leading edge overlapping with a trailing edge of the roll;
- identify that the leading edge of the sheet and the trailing edge of the roll are in an overlapping arrangement;
- and
- connect together the sheet to the trailing edge of the roll with the leading edge of the sheet overlapping with the trailing edge of the roll.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.