JPH09150416A - Apparatus for preparing prepreg and its manufacture - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To stop shipping of an article of inferior quality and to save personnel expenditures needed for inspection of a product by providing a detecting means for detecting the amt. of remaining of a resin on a wound release paper in a winding means. SOLUTION: A release paper 9 delivered from an unwind roll 1 is wound on a wind-up roll 3 through a pathline. In this case, a resin on the release paper is transferred on a reinforcing fiber 6 by means of a plurality of resin transfer apparatus 2. The reinforcing fiber 6 transferred with the resin is wound on a product roll 8 as a prepreg 7. An inspection apparatus 4 constituted of a CCD camera 4b and a near ultraviolet ray source 4a is set up between a plurality of the resin transfer apparatus 2 and a wind-up roll 3 so as to inspect the release paper after the resin is transferred. The inspection apparatus 4 utilizes the difference in reflection intensities of the near ultraviolet rays between the remaining resin and the release paper 9 and when the release paper 9 adhered with the resin is observed by means of a CCD camera 4b under the near ultraviolet rays, the part of the resin is dark and the part of the release paper 9 is bright to obtain the amt. of remaining of the resin on the release paper 9 from the intensity of a signal.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a prepreg manufacturing apparatus and manufacturing method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A prepreg is manufactured by transferring a matrix resin to a reinforcing fiber, but if the matrix resin is not transferred or the transfer amount is insufficient, the strength of the part is reduced. The lack of strength is a serious quality defect for a prepreg characterized by light weight and high strength. Therefore, conventionally, the inspection of the resin transfer state in the prepreg has been tried by various inspection devices.

[0003]

However, when the prepreg as a product is directly inspected with a CCD camera or a thickness gauge, the unevenness of the reinforcing fiber of the base is detected, and even if the residual amount of the resin is detected, the base of the base is detected. There is a problem that the signal is buried in the signal, and the inspection of the resin transfer state in the prepreg has not been automated.

As a result, the present condition is that the inspection of the transfer state of the resin depends on human eyes. However, since the matrix resin is almost transparent, whether or not the resin of the reinforcing fiber is transferred is apparent only in the form of the amount of gloss remaining on the surface of the prepreg. Therefore, it is very difficult to find the transfer failure of the resin and it requires skill. Also, because it depends on people, there are individual differences in the judgment of defects,
There were problems such as overlooking and limited processing speed.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to prevent defective products from being shipped and to detect them by automatically detecting defective resin transfer online. An object of the present invention is to provide a prepreg manufacturing apparatus capable of saving costs and a prepreg manufacturing method capable of automating detection of a resin transfer defect.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, (a) unwinding means for resin transfer release paper coated with a matrix resin in advance, and (b) the release paper on the release paper. A transfer means for transferring and impregnating the resin of claim 1 onto the reinforcing fiber, and (c) a winding means for winding the release paper after the resin transfer, wherein the winding means is a winding means. The apparatus for producing a prepreg, which is provided with a detection means for detecting the residual amount of the resin on the release paper to be heated, and the release paper and the reinforcing fiber coated with the matrix resin in advance are brought into close contact with each other, and the release is performed. After transferring the resin on the pattern paper to the reinforcing fibers, when the release paper is peeled from the reinforcing fibers to produce a prepreg, the resin transfer state to the reinforcing fibers is determined by inspecting the release paper after peeling. Characterized by Providing a method for producing a pregnane.

Preferably, in the method of manufacturing a prepreg, the inspection is performed by utilizing the difference in reflected light intensity between the residual resin and the release paper in the release paper after peeling.

[0008]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The manufacturing apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is generally used for manufacturing a prepreg by a hot melt method. This manufacturing apparatus includes an unwinding roll 1, a plurality of pairs of resin transfer devices 2, a winding roll 3, and an inspection device 4,
A prepreg 7 manufactured by transferring a resin to the reinforcing fibers 6 supplied from a plurality of bobbins 5 and aligned by a comb 11 is wound on a product roll 8.

The unwinding roll 1 is coated with a matrix resin, and a release paper 9 wound in a roll is attached to the unwinding roll 1. The unwinding release paper 9 is guided by a guide roll 10 to the same pass line LP as the reinforcing fiber 6. Will be guided to. Each resin transfer device 2 is arranged along the pass line LP and has a nip roll 2a and a heater 2b.

The take-up roll 3 has a release paper 9 which is guided by a plurality of guide rolls 10 after the transfer of the resin is completed.
Take up. The inspection device 4 is arranged on the winding side of the release paper 9 and has a near-ultraviolet light source 4a and a CCD camera 4b. The near-ultraviolet light source 4a emits ultraviolet rays in the range of 300 to 400 nm. The reinforcing fiber supplied from the bobbin 5 is
The fibers are separated by the comb 11, and are flattened and guided through the guide roll 10 to the pass line LP.

In this manufacturing apparatus, the release paper 9 is fed from the unwinding roll 1 to the reinforcing fibers 6 moving along the pass line LP. The plural pairs of resin transfer devices 2 transfer the resin to the reinforcing fibers 6 by heating and closely contacting the release paper 9 with the reinforcing fibers 6. Then, the release paper 9 after the resin transfer is
It is guided by a plurality of guide rolls 10 and wound up by the winding roll 3.

At this time, if resin transfer failure occurs,
The resin that has not been transferred remains on the release paper 9.
That is, if there is resin on the release paper 9, the resin is not transferred to the reinforcing fiber 6 side, and if there is no resin on the release paper 9, the resin is transferred to the reinforcing fiber 6 side. In the present invention, the inspection device 4 is arranged on the winding roll 3 side and the residual amount of the resin on the release paper 9 is inspected, thereby indirectly inspecting the transfer state of the resin on the prepreg 7.

As a result, when the transfer state of the matrix resin on the prepreg side as a product is directly inspected in the related art, the unevenness of the reinforcing fiber of the base becomes noise and the automatic detection of the transfer failure which does not go well is performed by the flat separation. By inspecting the paper pattern side, it is possible to reliably detect without being disturbed by the background noise. Hereinafter, the present invention will be described with reference to examples.

[0014]

EXAMPLE In FIG. 1, the release paper 9 sent out from the unwinding roll 1 is taken up by the take-up roll 3 through the pass line LP. At this time, the resin on the release paper 9 is transferred to the reinforcing fibers 6 by the plurality of pairs of resin transfer devices 2. The reinforcing fiber 6 to which the resin has been transferred is wound around the product roll 8 as a prepreg 7. The inspection device 4 was installed between a plurality of pairs of the resin transfer devices 2 and the winding roll 3 so that the release paper 9 after the resin transfer can be inspected.

The width of the release paper 9 to be inspected is 1000 m
m and the line speed was 10 m / min. The inspection device 4 used has a black light blue fluorescent lamp having a wavelength of 352 nm as a near-ultraviolet light source 4a and a CCD camera 4b. The inspection device 4 utilizes the difference in the reflection intensity of near-ultraviolet light between the remaining resin and the release paper 9, and the release paper 9 with resin is placed under the near-ultraviolet light source 4a under the CCD camera 4b.
The resin part was dark and the release paper 9 part was bright.

The mounting state of the inspection device 4 is shown in FIG. At this time, the CCD camera 4b is arranged so as to oppose the surface of the release paper 9 so that the optical axis LA is vertical. However, the mounting angle of the CCD camera 4b does not need to be perpendicular to the surface of the release paper 9, but it is preferably arranged within 30 degrees from the vertical in order to obtain sufficient detection sensitivity. Further, as shown in FIG. 3, the CCD camera 4b allows the release paper 9 to be inspected over a maximum width of 1000 mm, as shown in FIG.
Two release papers 9 were arranged at intervals of 495 mm in the width direction of the release paper 9, and the inspection ranges of the respective CCD cameras 4b on the release paper 9 were overlapped by 10 mm as shown by the portion A in the figure.

As the near-ultraviolet light source 4a, two black light blue fluorescent lamps of 40 W were attached 10 cm above the release paper 9. The mounting position is CCD camera 4b
To obtain the amount of light required for inspection with
It is preferable to install within cm. The inspection device 4 may inspect anywhere as long as it is the release paper 9 after the transfer, but it is considered that the inspection result is affected if the release paper 9 vibrates. Therefore, it is preferable to perform the inspection just above the guide roll 10. good.

Next, the video signal obtained from the CCD camera 4b is sent to the signal processing device. From the signal from the CCD camera 4b, from the bit position of the CCD camera 4b,
The widthwise range of the resin remaining on the release paper 9 as a result of the transfer failure can be obtained from the signal strength as the residual amount of the resin. Where C
A typical example of the signal obtained from the CD camera 4b is shown in FIG. In FIG. 4, the vertical axis represents the intensity of reflected light obtained when the release paper 9 after resin transfer is irradiated with near-ultraviolet light, and the horizontal axis represents the position in the width direction of the release paper 9 on the release paper 9. The defective portion in the case where the resin remains in is indicated by F in which the signal level decreases downward in the figure. In this case, the size in the width direction of the defect portion F on the release paper 9 is obtained from the number of bits between the boundaries F1 and F2 of the defect portion F shown in FIG.

Next, FIG. 5 shows an example of a signal when the resin remains on the release paper 9 more densely than in the case shown in FIG. As in the defect portion F shown in FIG. 5, the signal strength level further decreases due to the remaining amount of resin. Further, the signal from the length measuring instrument is also taken into the signal processing device, and the range of the resin flow direction can be known from the signal due to the transfer failure. For example, since the length measuring instrument used this time is 1 pulse / 0.1 m, if the defect signal as shown in FIG. 4 is detected for 3 pulses, this defect is 0.3 m in the flow direction. The resolution in the width direction is determined by the number of bits of the CCD camera 4b and the inspection width, and in this case, 500 mm was inspected by the 2 Kbit CCD camera 4b. Therefore, the resolution is 0.2
That is 5 mm. If the resolution of the CCD camera 4b is insufficient, the number of cameras should be increased as necessary.
In the signal processing device, the signal obtained from the CCD camera 4b is compared with preset resin range and remaining amount data,
For those with a set value or more, the positions are printed out and an alarm is issued to notify the occurrence of defective resin transfer.

Here, in the above embodiment, the inspection device 4 is
The resin transfer failure was determined by utilizing the difference between the residual resin and the reflected light intensity of near-ultraviolet light reflected from the release paper 9. However, the inspection device 4 can also determine the resin transfer failure based on the difference in fluorescence in the near-ultraviolet region between the release paper 9 and the resin. Further, as another embodiment, the near-ultraviolet light source and the CCD camera are replaced by a thickness meter combining infrared rays and an infrared sensor, and a thickness meter combining β rays and β ray sensors is used. It is also possible to detect the presence or absence of resin on the release paper 9 by measuring the thickness of 9 to determine the resin transfer failure.

[0021]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, automatic detection of resin transfer defects on-line can prevent defective products from being shipped and save labor costs required for inspection. Provided are a prepreg manufacturing apparatus and a prepreg manufacturing method capable of automating the detection of a resin transfer defect.

Further, according to the present invention, it becomes possible to automate the detection of a resin transfer defect, which has hitherto relied on the human eye, and it is possible to eliminate an oversight caused by a human and a variation in judgment of a defect. It was Further, conventionally, the defect detection including the detection of the transfer defect by the human eyes has been performed in the final step, so that the correction operation for the defect generation is practically impossible. Since the occurrence of defects can be detected in real time, it is possible to correct transfer defects, leading to an improvement in prepreg yield.

At this time, in the prepreg manufacturing method, since the difference in the reflected light intensity between the residual resin and the release paper in the release paper after peeling is used for the inspection, the residual resin and the release paper are clearly defined. It can be detected separately.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a prepreg manufacturing apparatus according to an embodiment of a prepreg manufacturing apparatus and a manufacturing method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a layout view of an inspection device used in a prepreg manufacturing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a layout view of a CCD camera used in a prepreg manufacturing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a signal characteristic diagram showing an example of a defect signal detected by the prepreg manufacturing method of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a signal characteristic diagram showing an example of another defect signal detected by the prepreg manufacturing method of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Unwinding roll 2 Resin transfer device 2a Nip roll 2b Heater 3 Winding roll 4 Inspection device 4a Near-ultraviolet light source 4b CCD camera 5 Bobbin 6 Reinforcing fiber 7 Prepreg 8 Product roll 9 Release paper 10 Guide roll 11 Comb F Defects F1, F2 Boundary of defects

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. (a) Unwinding means for resin transfer release paper coated with a matrix resin in advance, and (b) transfer means for transferring and impregnating the resin on the release paper to reinforcing fibers. C) A prepreg manufacturing apparatus comprising: a winding unit that winds the release paper after the resin transfer, wherein the winding unit includes a detection unit that detects the residual amount of the resin on the release paper to be wound. The prepreg manufacturing apparatus is characterized in that 2. A release paper preliminarily coated with a matrix resin and a reinforcing fiber are heated and brought into close contact with each other, the resin on the release paper is transferred to the reinforcing fiber, and then the release paper is peeled from the reinforcing fiber to form a prepreg. A method for producing a prepreg, characterized in that, during production, the resin transfer state to the reinforcing fibers is judged by inspecting the release paper after peeling. 3. The method for producing a prepreg according to claim 2, wherein the prepreg is inspected by utilizing a difference in reflected light intensity between the residual resin and the release paper in the release paper after peeling.