Automatic draping of carbon-fiber prepreg plies for the aerospace industry is a promising technique for lowering the manufacturing costs and to this end, a thorough in-process quality control is crucial. In this paper, out-of-plane defects in the layup are investigated. After draping, air pockets are occasionally encountered. The question is, if such apparent defects can be mitigated sufficiently during vacuum debulking. The 3D topology is measured by means of a structured-light 3D scanner and air pockets are segmented. An approximate mass-spring ply model is used to study the behavior of the air pockets during application of vacuum pressure. The model is computationally fast and will indicate online whether the air pocket will be removed or manual intervention is required. Upon comparing the model predictions with experimental data, it is shown that the system is capable of correctly predicting 13 out of 14 air pockets in a test layup.

用于航空航天业的碳纤维预浸料自动覆盖是降低制造成本的一种有前途的技术，为此，彻底的过程中质量控制至关重要。在本文中，研究了叠层中的平面外缺陷。悬垂后，偶尔会遇到气袋。问题是，在真空压实过程中是否可以充分减轻这种明显的缺陷。3D拓扑是通过结构化的3D扫描仪进行测量的，并且对气囊进行了分段。使用近似质量弹簧层模型来研究在施加真空压力期间气穴的行为。该模型计算速度快，可以在线显示是否要去除气穴或需要手动干预。将模型预测结果与实验数据进行比较后，