The Boeing Company
Composite Preform Assembly Method and Apparatus

Abstract:

A method for fabricating a preform for a portion of an aircraft includes acquiring a sheet of broad good fiber reinforced material, trimming the sheet to form layup pieces having boundaries, placing the boundaries into alignment, arranging the layup pieces in a layup pattern to form a ply, performing a placement operation that transports the layup pattern onto a layup mandrel, and shaping the layup pattern into conformance with a contour of the layup mandrel.