What Does a Composite Tooling Engineer Do in Advanced Manufacturing?
Composite components often require tooling systems to help ensure accurate production of the final product.
What is a Composite Tooling Engineer?
Composite Tooling Engineers help bridge the gap between design and manufacturing. They help create tooling to help produce composite components. This includes molds, fixtures, and ancillary equipment appropriate to the material, product design, and manufacturing process.
In industries such as aerospace, defense, marine, and subsea, the quality of tooling can affect the consistency of the final product.
What is Composite Tooling?
Composite tooling comprises fixtures and ancillary equipment used to produce components from composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass.
Composites often require a layered approach to manufacturing. Reinforcement layers are placed into or onto a mold and then resin is applied and cured.
The tooling will provide the shape and support during manufacturing.
Depending on the component, tooling may need to be designed to take into account:
The design of the component.
Material selection.
Layup requirements.
Resin application and curing.
Temperature and pressure requirements.
Surface finish.
Accuracy.
Part removal.
The tooling must not only create the right shape but also provide support for an accurate manufacturing process.
What does a Composite Tooling Engineer do?
The role of a Composite Tooling Engineer requires a good knowledge of design, materials, and manufacturing.
Designing tooling.
A Composite Tooling Engineer will work with engineering drawings and component requirements to design tooling. This will take into account the component design, manufacturing process, material properties, and requirements.
Material selection.
The tooling will need to withstand the manufacturing processes.
Depending on the application, the tooling may be manufactured from metal, composite or other suitable materials. It will need to take into account thermal properties, accuracy, durability and the manufacturing environment.
Understanding layup.
Tooling will need to be designed to account for how the composite will be laid up.
The fiber orientation, ply placement, laminate thickness and accessibility will all impact the manufacturing process.
Accuracy.
The tooling will impact the final shape of the component. Therefore, tolerances, deflection, thermal expansion and any dimensional changes must be considered.
The tooling design must be accurate and function as intended during manufacturing.
Working with manufacturing.
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Tooling Engineers will work closely with manufacturing, design and quality engineers.
They may be required to troubleshoot manufacturing issues, review tooling, and adjust the design to suit any changes in manufacturing requirements.
Why is tooling important in carbon fiber manufacturing?
Carbon fiber composites are used in applications where strength, stiffness, and weight are important design factors.
However, the quality of the final component will depend on the manufacturing process. The tooling will impact the shape, size and surface of the component. If poor tooling design or poor process control is used, this can cause inconsistencies in component size, surface issues, and manufacturing issues.
This can be a big factor when manufacturing components for harsh environments.
For example, when manufacturing a carbon fiber subsea component, the shape, interfaces, and sizing may affect how it fits with other components in the integrated system.
The tooling used to manufacture this component is part of a large engineering process.
Tooling in Subsea manufacturing.
Subsea manufacturing can introduce different engineering factors.
Components may need to be manufactured to meet certain requirements for structural loading, pressure, exposure, weight, and integration.
A Composite Tooling Engineer must understand how the manufacturing process will relate to the application.
For example, pressure-resistant composite structures will require tooling to provide the correct shape and control during manufacturing. The component must then be reviewed to ensure it meets the relevant engineering and quality requirements.
This applies to any composite structures being manufactured for autonomous underwater vehicles. The component’s sizing and interfaces will affect how the vehicle is assembled.
How Composite Tooling plays a role in CET’s manufacturing.
Composite Energy Technologies (CET), based in Bristol, Rhode Island, works in advanced composite manufacturing and subsea engineering. Its capabilities include composite structures, carbon-fiber pressure vessels and complex subsea systems.
CET’s HADALUS family of large autonomous underwater vehicles brings together composite construction, vehicle architecture and integrated subsea systems. Manufacturing platforms of this type require coordination among materials, structural design, component interfaces, and production requirements.
Composite tooling is one part of the wider manufacturing discipline involved in producing complex composite structures.
It is important to understand that the final composite structure will be based not only on the materials selected but also on the engineering and manufacturing processes.
Skills Required
Those interested in Composite Tooling Engineering should have a good knowledge of:
Mechanical/Manufacturing engineering.
Composites and laminate design.
CAD and tooling design.
Engineering drawings and tolerances.
Mould and fixture design.
Manufacturing planning.
Dimensional checking.
Material properties.
Troubleshooting manufacturing issues.
Quality engineering.
Having practical experience in fabricating composites can be useful for understanding how tooling decisions can impact the manufacturing floor.
This role will often involve working with others. Tooling Engineers will need to communicate with design engineers, technicians, manufacturing, and quality to troubleshoot issues.
Composite tooling engineering connects product design with the realities of manufacturing. As carbon-fiber structures become increasingly important in aerospace, marine, defense, and subsea applications, the ability to design appropriate tooling and maintain manufacturing accuracy remains a key engineering skill.
