The DASM|XL infrastructure covers two adjacent buildings: The Delft Aerospace Materials and Structures Laboratory (DASML, 3000m2) for developing and testing new materials, conversion processes and prototype products, and the Smart Advanced Manufacturing building (SAM|XL, 2000m2) with complementary smart manufacturing facilities for digitalisation, robotisation and scale-up.
An overview of the DASM|XL infrastructure is as follows:
• Chemical laboratory for making new molecules for coating or shape memory applications.
• Physical characterization lab: new materials can be characterized: optical, electrical and (micro)mechanical, and behavior in extreme in-air or in-space conditions.
• Thermoplastic tape lab-scale production line to make new tapes and study their processing properties.
• Advanced engineering design and optimization software.
• Composite manufacturing equipment (thermoset and thermoplast): dry resin infusion, prepregs in an autoclave up to 2 meters in length, two hot-presses. This opens the way to both the processing of thermoset materials and thermoplastic materials.
• Surface treatment: etching techniques, or with a strong pulsed XeCl laser (1 kW, 305 nm), also used for drilling holes in materials.
• Dedicated welding facility: ultrasonic, resistance and induction welding for different materials.
• Mechanical testing, reliability and failure mechanisms: A range of tensile and fatigue benches are available: few Newtons up to 3500 kN.
• Cognitive robotics infrastructure: through external sensors, the robots are aware of their surroundings and are able to identify, plan and execute manufacturing tasks based on zero-programming (AI). The cognitive robotic infrastructure ranges from small robots for training, student projects and ‘quick trials’ all the way to larger track-mounted robots, multi-robot cells and a 6m high gantry robot for product sizes up to 8x5m. This enables quick and easy starts with the possibility to scale-up. The infrastructure includes a wide range of robots (very fast, very accurate, very strong, very precise, very large, …) which cover most manufacturing, assembly and inspection applications. The robotic infrastructure is fully accessible for extraction and insertion of data (no black-boxes).
• NDT inspection robot that can make real time 3D inspections of manufactured parts, with interchangeable sensors to inspect a wide range of materials and structures: phased array, through transmission, guided waves, etc.
• Mobile robotics test track for benchmarking the accuracy/durability of various indoor tracking technologies aimed at inspection or drilling. Various AGVs (individual, swarming).
• A dual-robot cell for 3D printing of large complex parts using two robots at the same time. This cell can also be used for simultaneous processing: make&inspect, print&trim, assembly etc.
• A 7x11m laser safe cell with a track-mounted industrial robot for using lasers to weld, cut and clean objects. Currently being made ready for Automated Fibre Placement of Composites.
• A dual-bridge gantry robot with 2x300kg payload) and a working volume of 8x11x6m for large size component manufacture.
• A spray-paint cabinet for robot application of coatings, paints, release agents, etc.
• A cobot exploration bench for pick&place of thin, flexible materials.
• A cobot exploration bench for mechanical assembly.
• A wide range of training robots.
• Large-size (10x10m) arena for AR/VR technologies.
• Manufacturing simulation, monitoring and control software.
• ‘Empty’ project space with industrial-grade electrical and ICT connections can be used for building dedicated full-scale manufacturing pilot lines.