| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
MS&T22: Materials Science & Technology
|
| Symposium
|
Innovative Process Design and Processing for Advanced Structural Materials
|
| Presentation Title |
K-5: Development of a Self-heated Composite Tool for Out of Autoclave and Out of Oven Cure of Thin Ply Composite Structures |
| Author(s) |
Dwayne R. Morgan |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Dwayne R. Morgan |
| Abstract Scope |
A lightweight self-heating composite tool is described that contains a graphite foam core and independent heater control for enhancing temperature uniformity and resin stability during cure. The technology is an alternative to conventional oven and autoclave curing of large composite structures. Moreover the out of autoclave (OOA) and out of oven (OOO) composite tool technology should significantly reduce high operational costs and increase productivity in large structural composites manufacturing.
The research was made possible through the NASA Phase I and Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. In this effort the heater and power supply requirements were defined. A prototype tool was constructed for characterizing heat transfer, surface temperature uniformity, and to verify analytical results. The planned application will be for OOA-OOO curing of NASA Deployable Composite Boom (DCB) technology manufactured from thin-ply composites and that span 100 meters in length when deployed. |