SMART TOOL CAULS CASE STUDY Manufacture of high performance, carbon fiber, reinforced epoxy components with tight radii, included corners has been a long standing manufacturing challenge faced by the aerospace industry. The primary difficulty associated with manufacture of these components is in the initial lay-up of the carbon/epoxy prepreg material into the tight corners. Both manual operators and automated layup …
Co-Cured I-Beam Using Bladder Smart Tools Case Study
PROBLEM – How to fabricate a flight quality co-cured I-Beam composite structure in an environment that enables high volume manufacturing OPPORTUNITY – Generate a viable solution that will produce a high quality composite with an accelerated curing cycle using Smart Tools that act as bladders during cure. SOLUTION – A PLC controlled, self-heating, and self-pressurizing cure mold was combined with …
UAV Inlet Duct | Smart Tools That Act as Mandrels During Cure Case Study
PROBLEM – Fabricate a 52” long by 12” dia. inlet duct using a clean tooling solution with the lowest up front capital cost and equal or better composite part cost. OPPORTUNITY – Deliver a mandrel solution that requires lower up front cost than a multi-piece metal mandrel and can be deployed with both prepreg and dry carbon fiber with resin …
Y-Shaped Vent Tube | Complex Geometry Composite Case Study
Previous Process The baseline process was to lay-up this aerospace grade, Y-shaped vent tube in two halves into the female cavity of the cure mold that were joined for cure. This frequently resulted in the laminate being pinched and uneven. It also forced the lap joints to be staggered over the same area, resulting in a thicker composite part with …
Alternative to Washout Tooling | Non-Structural Duct Case Study
PROBLEM – Fabricate a non-structural duct in a quick, clean, and efficient process without an autoclave or washout tooling. OPPORTUNITY – Create an oven cure solution that will produce a high-quality composite duct with a reusable Smart Tool. SOLUTION – A Smart Tool that acts as a bladder during cure was combined with a OML cure mold to create an …
Trapped Geometry Demolding – Benefits of Smart Tooling Case Study
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 …
Co-cured Composite Structures Using Smart Tooling Case Study
How Smart Tooling can offer better quality, lower cost, and throughput advantages over traditional fabrication methods for co-cured composite structures. Using Smart Tools to Create Multi-Chamber Control Surfaces Using Smart Tools to create co-cured composite structures such as a multi-chamber control surface improves part quality by allowing the customer to lay-up on male tools. Traditional fabrications require layups to be …