One of the major benefits of Smart Tooling is the ability to demold from trapped geometry. In the video below, we demonstrate how Smart Tools that act as Bladders are rigid during cure, and elastic at extraction. This elasticity allows the Smart Tool to be extracted from a composite part with complex or trapped geometry. Once extracted, the Smart Tool is reformed while hot and elastic and returns to its rigid state as it cools down, ready to begin the next cycle.

During cure, Smart Tools that act as bladders become elastic and translate pressure onto the inner composite part surface to press it against the inside of the mold that determines the outside surface geometry, eliminating air and excess resin to improve part quality. While still elastic, Smart Tools that act as bladders are easily removed from the cured composite part and can be reformed and reused.

Smart Tooling provides formable, reusable tooling solutions for manufacturing composite parts with complex geometries for the aerospace & defense industry. Smart Tools improve quality, reduce labor hours, decrease consumables, and increase throughput – essentially, Smart Tools enable the manufacturing of composite parts better, cheaper, and faster.

Smart Tooling’s Shape Memory Polymers are designed to be aerospace-grade RIGID epoxies at room temperature, and highly FLEXIBLE elastomers when heated, eliminating the need for expensive, laborious, tedious, dirty, and challenging solutions such as melt-out foam, metal breakdown tools, rubber bladders, or washout tooling.

We also deliver comprehensive solutions. We offer total solutions for the manufacture of your composite part, including custom tooling engineering and design, fabrication of molds, Smart Tooling fabrication, initial composite part manufacturing, custom standard operating procedures, onsite start-up support and training, and any future training if required.

Learn more about Smart Tools that act as Bladders or check out our library of case studies and data sheets.