JP6613577B2 - Cutting system and method for nonwoven sheet containing carbon fiber - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a cutting system and a cutting method for a non-woven sheet containing carbon fibers that cuts a sheet containing carbon fibers into a plurality of cut pieces.

  Conventionally, carbon fiber has been widely used as a lightweight and high-strength material as a material for aircraft and automobile parts and golf club heads, and is known to be useful for drastic improvements in fuel consumption and weight reduction of golf clubs. It has been. Carbon fiber has ten times or more strength and heat resistance of iron, and carbon fiber reinforced resin (CFRP) containing carbon fiber is a difficult-to-process composite material. Therefore, it takes time and effort to recycle the carbon fiber reinforced resin that has become waste after use, resulting in high costs.

For example, when the carbon fiber reinforced resin waste is reused, since the used carbon fiber reinforced resin contains an epoxy resin, an organic polymer such as a sizing agent, etc., the resin component is skipped by heating to a high temperature. And in order to reprocess this, a polypropylene resin etc. are added as a binder, and it heat-presses and makes it the sheet form of a nonwoven fabric, and is wound around the roll.
When cutting to reuse the sheet-like carbon fiber reinforced resin, machining with a Thomson blade or the like is likely to damage the blade, requiring frequent replacement and high cost. In addition, there is a disadvantage that damage is caused when the carbon fiber is mechanically cut.

On the other hand, for example, a laser processing system described in Patent Document 1 has been proposed as a processing technique for carbon fiber reinforced resin. In this system, a first laser beam and a second laser beam oscillated from a laser light source are superposed coaxially using a dichroic mirror. Then, the superimposed laser beam scans and cuts the workpiece of the carbon fiber reinforced resin by rotating the pair of galvanometer mirrors in conjunction with each other.
Moreover, in what was described in the nonpatent literature 1, it cut | disconnects by scanning a laser beam to carbon fiber reinforced resin in multiple times with the low electric power of about 30W.

JP 2014-24105 A

Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 43-50

By the way, when the waste carbon fiber reinforced resin is cut using the laser processing technique described in Patent Document 1 or Non-Patent Document 1, the epoxy resin remaining in the carbon fiber reinforced resin or the organic polymer of the sizing agent is used. In addition, since a polypropylene resin or the like added as a binder to form a nonwoven fabric burns with laser light, there is a drawback that an organic gas is generated to generate odors and scatter around. In addition, when the carbon fiber reinforced resin is cut, there is a disadvantage that carbon fly, which is a short length of carbon fiber, and other dusts are generated and scattered.
When the carbon fly is scattered in the air, it is easy to conduct electricity, so there is a risk of electric leakage or electric shock, and when the organic gas or dust is scattered around, there is a risk of adversely affecting the work environment of the operator.

In view of such problems, the present invention includes a carbon fiber that can cut a nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber at high speed using laser light and can remove dust containing combustion gas and carbon fly. It aims at providing the cutting processing system and cutting method of a nonwoven fabric sheet.

The nonwoven fabric sheet cutting processing system according to the present invention includes a laser light source that oscillates a laser beam, an optical system that cuts the nonwoven fabric sheet that includes the carbon fiber with a laser beam, and a nonwoven fabric sheet that includes the carbon fiber. A recovery mechanism for sucking combustion gas and dust containing carbon fly generated when cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet containing the carbon fiber disposed on the side, and collecting a plurality of cut pieces by cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet by suction And a separating means for separating the cut pieces, which are collected and entangled with each other, by blowing off the cut pieces by blowing air .
According to the present invention, a laser beam oscillated from a laser light source is scanned by an optical system such as a galvano optical system to cut a non-woven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers, and is divided into a plurality of cut pieces. In addition, when cutting a nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers by laser light, other resin components such as binders contained in the nonwoven fabric sheet are burned by the heat of the laser light to generate combustion gas and carbon fly by cutting. Dust is generated and is about to be scattered in the surrounding space, but the recovery mechanism provided at the bottom of the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber sucks and removes these combustion gases and dust, preventing scattering to the surrounding space. Work environment.
What formed the waste containing carbon fiber in the nonwoven fabric sheet can cut easily, and is convenient for subsequent rework and recycling.

And although the cut piece which cut | disconnected the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber is not attracted | sucked by the collection | recovery mechanism but remains on the mounting surface of a collection | recovery mechanism, these cut pieces can be attracted | sucked and collect | recovered by a suction collection means.

Moreover, it is preferable to provide a separating means for separating the cut pieces from each other by blowing or sucking gas to the cut pieces obtained by cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers.
Some of the cut pieces of the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers are in a state where the fibers at the ends are entangled and connected to each other, but in the recovery step by the suction recovery means or after recovery, gas is blown or sucked by the separation means By doing so, a plurality of cut pieces can be separated from each other so that they can be easily reworked.

Moreover, you may make it provide further the blowing means which blows and removes gas to the dust containing the combustion gas and carbon fly which generate | occur | produce when cut | disconnecting the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber.
Even if dust including gas and carbon fly cannot be sufficiently collected by the suction mechanism provided at the lower part of the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber, it can be removed by blowing off by the blowing means to prevent the surrounding environment from deteriorating.

The cut piece of the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers may be a small cut piece having a side of 50 mm or less.

The method for cutting a non-woven sheet containing carbon fiber according to the present invention includes a step of placing the non-woven sheet containing carbon fiber on a recovery mechanism, and a non-woven sheet containing carbon fiber cut by laser light using an optical system. A step of sucking the combustion gas generated when cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers and dust containing carbon fly by the collection mechanism, and a step of collecting the plurality of cut pieces by suction. And a step of separating the cut pieces, which are collected and entangled with each other, by blowing off each other by blowing air .
According to the present invention, a non-woven sheet containing carbon fibers placed on a recovery mechanism is cut by scanning a laser beam with an optical system such as a galvano optical system, and a binder or residual material generated by the heat of the laser beam at the time of cutting. Since dust containing combustion gas such as resin or carbon fly is sucked and removed by a recovery mechanism below the nonwoven fabric sheet, the surrounding work environment can be prevented from deteriorating.

The cutting processing system and cutting method of a nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers according to the present invention is capable of efficiently cutting a nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers with a laser beam at high speed using an optical system, and is low in cost. Combustion gas by resin such as resin contained in the nonwoven fabric sheet and dust containing carbon fly can be sucked and removed under the nonwoven fabric sheet to prevent the surrounding work environment from deteriorating, and the carbon fly can prevent leakage and electric shock. Etc. can be removed.

It is a schematic diagram of the cutting process system which shows the process of cut | disconnecting the nonwoven fabric containing the carbon fiber by embodiment of this invention, dividing | segmenting into a cut piece, and processing it into a pellet. It is explanatory drawing which shows the principal part structure of the cutting processing apparatus of the sheet | seat containing the carbon fiber using a galvano optical system. It is a figure which shows the isolation | separation means which divides | segments the cut piece divided | segmented separately. It is a flowchart which shows the process of cut | disconnecting the nonwoven fabric sheet containing the carbon fiber by embodiment, and forming a pellet.

Hereinafter, a cutting apparatus and a cutting method for a nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fibers according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 1 is a process diagram showing a cutting system including a cutting device for a continuous nonwoven fabric sheet 1 containing carbon fibers. In the cutting processing system shown in FIG. 1, a continuous nonwoven fabric sheet 1 containing carbon fibers for recycling is intermittently drawn and cut into a predetermined length. And the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A which is a sheet | seat of predetermined length is cut | disconnected by the cutting zone 2 using the galvano optical system 13 of the cutting processing apparatus 5 mentioned later to the some piece 3 of a piece piece. Next, the divided pieces 3 are put into an extruder and pressed to form a substantially cylindrical pellet P, which is obtained as a material for reuse.

  The nonwoven fabric sheet 1A can be appropriately set in dimensions, for example, a square with a side of 1 m and a thickness of 3 to 4 mm or 5 to 6 mm. The cut piece 3 divided by the laser beam is a square plate-like piece having a side of, for example, 25 mm or more and 50 mm or less. In addition, although the dimension of one piece of the cut piece 3 may be less than 25 mm, there exists a fault which the generation amount of the organic gas which is a combustion gas will increase when cut small.

Next, before explaining the nonwoven fabric sheet cutting apparatus 5 and the cutting method according to the embodiment, a pre-process for producing the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A from carbon fiber-reinforced resin waste containing carbon fibers for recycling. explain. As described above, golf club heads, aircraft and automobile parts are known as carbon fiber reinforced resin waste. These carbon fiber reinforced resin wastes include carbon fiber containing epoxy resin, sizing organic polymer, and the like.
Then, these carbon fiber reinforced resin wastes are crushed and put into a heating furnace to burn and remove the epoxy resin, the organic polymer of the sizing agent, etc., and take out only the carbon fibers. For example, about 30% of a polypropylene resin as a binder is mixed with 70% of the carbon fibers and heated and pressed at about 250 ° C., so that a part of the polypropylene resin is melted and the carbon fibers are bonded to form a nonwoven fabric. The continuous nonwoven fabric sheet 1 containing the carbon fiber shown in FIG. 1 is obtained by making this into a sheet and winding it on a roll.

Next, the cutting apparatus 5 for the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A in the cutting system for cutting the small piece 3 from the nonwoven sheet 1A will be described with reference to FIG.
The cutting apparatus 5 for the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A includes a placement processing unit 6 for placing and cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A cut to a predetermined length, and a cutting optical system for cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A using laser light. 7 and a collection mechanism 8 that collects organic gas generated at the time of cutting or dust including carbon fly that is a short fiber.

The placement processing unit 6 of the cutting processing device 5 is provided with a support base 10 on which a nonwoven fabric sheet 1A obtained by cutting a roll-like continuous nonwoven fabric sheet 1 into a predetermined length is intermittently conveyed and placed by a conveyor or the like. .
The cutting optical system 7 provided above the support 10 includes a laser oscillator 11 as a laser light source that oscillates laser light, and a condensing optical system 12 that condenses the laser light provided on the optical path of the laser light. The galvano optical system 13 is provided in front of the non-woven fabric sheet 1A and can scan the laser beam in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction orthogonal to each other.

In the galvano optical system 13, a first galvano mirror 15 provided in front of the condensing optical system 12 is attached by a drive motor 16 so as to be rotatable about its axis. The second galvanometer mirror 17 further reflects the laser beam reflected by the first galvanometer mirror 15 and irradiates the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A made of carbon fiber placed on the support 10 with a drive motor 18 around its axis. It can be turned.
The drive motors 16 and 18 are arranged in directions orthogonal to each other, whereby the first galvanometer mirror 15 can be rotated in the horizontal direction to scan the laser beam in, for example, the Y-axis direction, and the second galvanometer mirror. 17 can rotate in the vertical direction and scan the laser beam in the X-axis direction. The rotation of the first and second galvanometer mirrors 15 and 17 allows the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A to be cut at high speed by scanning the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A with laser light in the XY axis direction.

Further, as the recovery mechanism 8, an air intake portion 21 in which a large number of air intake cylinders 20 extending in the vertical direction is arranged is provided below the nonwoven fabric sheet 1 </ b> A placed on the support base 10, and the lower end of the air intake portion 21 is connected to the pipe 22. To the suction pump 23. The intake cylinder 20 is formed, for example, in a polygonal cross section with no gap, such as a honeycomb structure, that is, a hexagonal cross section, a quadrangular cylinder, or the like, and is arranged over at least a region overlapping the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A placed thereon. Preferably it is.
Further, the upper opening of each intake cylinder 20 is set to a size that is at least smaller than each side of the cut piece 3 so that the cut piece 3 is not sucked and dropped. In addition, the pipe 22 is provided with a collection unit 24 that sucks and captures dust including resin combustion gas, carbon fly, and the like generated when the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is cut through the intake unit 21.

  A blowing means 26 for blowing away dust containing combustion gas, carbon fly, etc. that could not be recovered by the recovery mechanism 8 far from the periphery of the cutting portion is installed on the upper portion of the support base 10. In the example shown in FIG. 2, the blowing means 26 blows air as an assist gas from an obliquely upper side of the nonwoven fabric sheet 1 </ b> A toward a cutting portion by laser light. The gas blown out from the blowing means 26 is not limited to air, but may be other gas, for example, an inert gas such as nitrogen gas or simple nitrogen gas, or a gas such as oxygen.

  In addition, a suction collection means 28 for sucking and collecting a plurality of cut pieces 3 divided into small pieces from the nonwoven fabric sheet 1 </ b> A is installed at the upper part of the support base 10. The suction recovery means 28 has one end of the tube body 28a disposed in the vicinity of the suction portion 21 of the support base 10, and the other end is connected to a suction pump (not shown), and sucks and conveys a plurality of cut pieces 3 at high speed. It is supposed to be.

  In addition, the cut piece 3 of the nonwoven fabric containing the carbon fibers cut out from the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A by the laser beam is not completely divided because the end-like cotton-like carbon fibers forming the respective sides are easily entangled with each other. Therefore, after a large number of pieces 3 are collected by the suction collecting means 28, the separating means 30 is stored in a storage tube 31 as shown in FIG. 3 and blown by a blower 32. Thereby, the cotton-like carbon fibers in which the cut pieces 3 are entangled in the storage tube 31 are divided and blown away to be separated. The separated non-woven fabric cut pieces 3 are easy to handle and can be easily stored and inserted into an extruder or the like.

The cutting device 5 for the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A according to the present embodiment has the above-described configuration. Next, a cutting method by the cutting system for the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.
First, the continuous nonwoven fabric sheet 1 of roll-shaped carbon fiber shown in FIG. 1 is intermittently drawn and cut into a nonwoven fabric sheet 1A having a predetermined length (step S1). This nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is intermittently conveyed by a conveyor (not shown) or the like and placed on the intake portion 21 of the support 10 of the cutting device 5 shown in FIG. 2 (step S2).

In this state, laser light is oscillated from the laser oscillator 11 and the first galvanometer mirror 15 and the second galvanometer mirror 17 in the galvano optical system 13 are rotated in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction via the condensing optical system 12, respectively. By doing so, the non-woven fabric sheet 1A is cut into a lattice by scanning the laser beam at predetermined intervals sequentially in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction (step S3).
When the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is cut with laser light, the laser light reaches the intake cylinder 20 of the intake section 21 below and cuts a part of the upper end, but each intake cylinder 20 has a length longer than that. Therefore, the intake cylinder 20 is not damaged or disassembled.

By cutting nonwoven fabric sheet 1A with laser light, polypropylene resin as a binder mixed in nonwoven fabric sheet 1A, slightly remaining epoxy resin, organic polymer of sizing agent, etc. are burned and decomposed with laser light, and odor Combustion gas with is generated. Moreover, dust containing carbon fiber carbon fly and the like is generated from the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A by cutting.
The dust containing the combustion gas and carbon fly is sucked from each intake cylinder 20 in the intake section 21 by driving the suction pump 23, and is collected by the collection section 24 through the pipe 22 (step S4).
Further, since air is ejected from the blowing means 26 simultaneously with the collection by the collecting mechanism 8, even if there is dust including combustion gas and carbon fly that cannot be collected by the collecting mechanism 8, the air flow from the blowing means 26 Can be scattered far away. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the odor or dust of the combustion gas remaining around the worker from floating and being sucked by the worker or the like.

Then, after the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is cut into a large number of small pieces 3, the pieces 3 are collected by the suction collection means 28 (step S5). Since the cut pieces 3 of the carbon fibers made of the recovered nonwoven fabric are not completely separated with the cotton-like carbon fibers entangled with each other, they are transferred to the separating means 30 and blown off with a strong air by the blower 32. They are forcibly separated from each other (step S6).
A large number of the cut pieces 3 thus obtained are put into an unillustrated extruder and are pressure-molded into pellets P (step S7). The obtained pellet P is recycled as a carbon fiber material containing about 70% carbon fiber.

As described above, according to the cutting system and the cutting method including the cutting device 5 for the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A according to the present embodiment, the carbon fiber nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is cut into small pieces using a galvano optical system 13 with laser light. 3 can be divided at high speed and low cost, and the running cost can be reduced. Moreover, since the galvano optical system 13 performs high-speed cutting, damage to the carbon fibers of the cut piece 3 is small, and deterioration in quality can be suppressed. In addition, a large number of cut pieces 3 can be collected at once by the suction collecting means 28, which is efficient.
In addition, the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is placed on the dust containing combustion gas, carbon fly, etc. generated from the polypropylene resin contained in the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A, the slightly remaining epoxy resin, the organic polymer of the sizing agent, or the like at the time of cutting with a laser beam. Since it can be suctioned and recovered downward via each intake cylinder 20 of the recovery mechanism 8, it can be prevented that it is scattered around and adversely affects the work environment of the operator. In addition, it is possible to eliminate dangers such as electric leakage and electric shock of electrical equipment due to the scattering of carbon fiber carbon fly.
In addition, dust containing combustion gas, carbon fly, and the like that could not be recovered can be scattered far away by the air blown from the blowing means 26, so that the working environment can be prevented from deteriorating.
Further, many of the cut pieces 3 are inconvenient to handle because the cotton-like carbon fibers are entangled with each other, but can be forcibly separated by the separating means 30 to be separated and easy to handle.

  Note that the cutting device 5 and the cutting method for the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A according to the present invention are not limited to the above-described embodiment, and appropriately replace the configuration of the above-described embodiment without departing from the gist of the present invention. Or change it. These are also included in the technical scope of the present invention. Below, although the modification etc. of the cutting device 5 of the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A by this invention and a cutting method are demonstrated, it demonstrates using the same code | symbol about the same or similar part, part, etc. as embodiment mentioned above. .

  For example, in the above-described embodiment, the recovery mechanism 8 provided on the lower side of the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A and the blowing means 26 provided obliquely above are provided as means for recovering dust containing combustion gas, carbon fly, etc., but at least It suffices if a recovery mechanism 8 is provided, whereby dust containing most of the combustion gas, carbon fly and the like can be recovered.

  In the above-described embodiment, the separating unit 30 is provided separately from the suction collecting unit 28 of the cutting apparatus 5, but the separating unit 30 may be provided in the suction collecting unit 28 instead. For example, in FIG. 2, an injection unit 35 that ejects a gas such as air is installed in the curved portion of the tube body 28 a of the suction collection unit 28, and the cutting piece 3 to be sucked is forcibly blown off by the injection unit 35. The three may be separated from each other. Alternatively, the cutting pieces 3 may be separated from each other by strengthening the suction action when the cutting pieces 3 are sucked by the suction collecting means 28.

Further, although the suction recovery means 28 is provided as the recovery means for the cut piece 3, the suction recovery means 28 is not necessarily provided. In that case, the cut pieces 3 may be collected manually, or the cut pieces 3 on the intake portion 21 may be collected with a cleaning bar or the like.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A containing carbon fibers is finally hardened to the pellet P by extrusion molding or the like. However, it is not always necessary to form the pellet P, and a small piece 3 may be used.

In the above-described embodiment, the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is placed directly on the intake portion 21 in which the intake cylinders 20 are arranged, but instead of this configuration, a floor plate such as SUS is installed on the intake portion 21. The nonwoven fabric sheet 1A may be placed thereon. In this case, when the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A is cut with the laser beam, the floor plate may also be cut, but the possibility that the upper portion of the intake cylinder 20 of the intake portion 21 is cut with the laser beam is reduced, and the life can be extended. .
In addition, although embodiment mentioned above demonstrated the cutting device 5 and the cutting method which cut | disconnect the nonwoven fabric sheet 1A containing a carbon fiber with a laser beam, this invention is not limited to a nonwoven fabric sheet, A carbon fiber is included. Any sheet-like member may be used. Various optical systems such as a reflection optical system other than the galvano optical system 13 and a scanning optical system that scans laser light may be provided as means for cutting the sheet containing carbon fibers.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Continuous nonwoven fabric sheet 1A Nonwoven fabric sheet 3 Cutting piece 5 Cutting processing device 8 Collection mechanism 10 Support base 13 Galvano optical system 20 Intake cylinder 21 Intake section 24 Collection section 26 Outlet means 28 Suction collection means 30 Separation means

Claims (4)

A laser light source that oscillates laser light;
An optical system for cutting a nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber with a laser beam;
A recovery mechanism for sucking dust containing combustion gas and carbon fly generated when cutting the non-woven sheet containing the carbon fiber, which is disposed below the non-woven sheet containing the carbon fiber;
A suction collection means for collecting a plurality of cut pieces obtained by cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet by suction;
Separating means that separates each of the cut pieces that are collected and entangled with each other by blowing away by blowing air;
A cutting system for a non-woven sheet containing carbon fiber, comprising: The cutting process of the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber according to claim 1 , further comprising blowing means for blowing and removing gas on dust containing combustion gas and carbon fly generated when cutting the sheet containing carbon fiber. system. The said cutting piece is a small cutting piece whose one side is 50 mm or less, The cutting processing system of the nonwoven fabric sheet containing the carbon fiber described in Claim 1 or 2 . Placing the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber on the recovery mechanism;
Cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet containing carbon fiber into a plurality of cut pieces by laser light using an optical system;
Sucking the dust containing the combustion gas and carbon fly generated at the time of cutting the nonwoven fabric sheet containing the carbon fiber by the recovery mechanism;
Recovering the plurality of cut pieces by suction;
A process of separating the cut pieces in which the fibers are entangled with each other by blowing away by blowing air ;
A method for cutting a non-woven sheet containing carbon fiber, comprising:

Images