Deflection compensation for numerical controlled manufacturing

A method to compensate for vertical deflection of parts manufactured by a numerically controlled (NC) machine, said method comprising the steps of:

• mounting a workpiece on an NC machine for receiving a material from a material application head of said NC machine, said workpiece having a set of actual workpiece coordinates including a plurality of actual horizontal components, a plurality of actual rotational components for each actual horizontal component, and a vertical sag component for each actual horizontal component;
• locating the material application head in one of a plurality of application head positions using a set of nominal coordinates, each of said nominal coordinates including at least a nominal horizontal component, a nominal rotational component, and a nominal vertical component;
• calculating a difference between the workpiece vertical sag component and the application head nominal vertical component;
• multiplying the difference by a multiplier value to provide an adjusted sag value;
• and
• subtracting the adjusted sag value from the nominal vertical component of the vertical head position to provide an application head compensation value.

A method to laminate a fiber laminated component, said method comprising the steps of:

• developing a numerical manufacturing model for a fiber laminated component;
• programming a numerical manufacturing machine to laminate said component;
• positioning a mold of said fiber laminated component on said numerical manufacturing machine;
• interpolating to determine a vertical deflection between any two adjacent points of a plurality of unsupported points for said mold;
• calculating a difference between said vertical deflection for each of said plurality of unsupported points and said numerical manufacturing model;
• and
• compensating said numerical manufacturing machine for each said difference.

A system to compensate for vertical deflection of an end-supported laminated part during manufacture, said system comprising:

• a numerically controlled (NC) machine having at least one support end, a laminate application head, and a computer for controlling said laminate application head;
• said at least one support end supports each of a plurality of laminate fabrication tools;
• said laminate application head having a plurality of location coordinate points each having a nominal value;
• and
• said computer having a program to one of calculate a compensation value for each of said location coordinate points and interpolate the compensation value between adjacent location coordinate points;
• wherein for each location coordinate point of said application head, a gravity induced vertical deflection of a select one of said laminate fabrication tools supported by said at least one support end is calculated by said computer, said vertical deflection is convertible to said compensation value, and said compensation value is subtracted from said nominal value to provide a new coordinate value usable by said NC machine to position said laminate application head to follow said gravity induced vertical deflection of said tool.

A method to compensate for vertical deflection of parts manufactured by a numerically controlled machine, the numerically controlled machine having a material application head, said method comprising the steps of:

• mounting a temporary tool on the numerically controlled machine operable to receive a material from the material application head, the temporary tool having a set of actual tool coordinates including a vertical sag component;
• locating the material application head at a nominal vertical coordinate;
• calculating a difference between the vertical sag component and the nominal vertical coordinate;
• multiplying the difference by a multiplier value to provide an adjusted sag value;
• subtracting the adjusted sag value from the nominal vertical coordinate to provide an application head compensation value;
• and
• moving the application head to perform a material deposition operation on the temporary tool using the application head compensation value.