GOALI: Consolidation and Curing of Advanced Composite Parts Using Elastomer-Coated Tooling

GOALI：使用弹性体涂层工具固结和固化先进复合材料零件

• 批准号: 1200847
• 负责人: Daniel Walczyk
• 金额: $ 35.2万
• 依托单位: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1200847&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: GOALI; Consolidation; Curing; Advanced; Composite

This Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) grant provides funding for the research and development of a new manufacturing process for advanced composite parts called Press Curing with Rubber-coated Tooling (PCRT). This is a new alternative to the standard practice of using a vacuum bag to encase the composite part to enable it to be subjected to high temperature and pressure in an autoclave for the final manufacturing step of consolidation and curing. The PCRT process eliminates the autoclave from the process and imparts the desired temperature and pressure through the use of a specially designed rubber-coated mold. Research objectives include gaining a deeper physical understanding of the process through extensive simulation and experimentation, creating robust simulation tools for designing mold sets, fundamental materials research on tooling, rubber masks, and interactions with composite systems, and expanding process capabilities to allow for eventual commercialization. The GOALI partner for this grant, Kintz Plastics, Inc. (Howes Cave, NY), will help with all aspects of the research work and be the first adopter of this technology.If successful, the results of this research will fundamentally change how composite manufacturers make small- to medium-size laminate and sandwich parts requiring high consolidation pressure and temperature. It will eliminate one of the major manufacturing bottlenecks facing the composites industry the autoclave step in the process. A published study has shown that for a relatively complex three-dimensional composite laminate part, PCRT provides orders of magnitude reduction in preparation time, fixed and recurring costs and energy consumption as compared to using an autoclave, while still providing parts of similar quality. It is expected that similar results will be demonstrated for a wider range of part shapes and material systems as a result of this work.

该赠款机会学术联络与工业（GOALI）赠款提供资金的研究和开发一种新的制造工艺先进的复合材料零件称为压力固化与橡胶涂层工具（PCRT）。这是一种新的替代标准做法，使用真空袋来包住复合材料部件，使其能够在高压釜中经受高温和高压，以进行固结和固化的最终制造步骤。PCRT工艺从工艺中消除了高压釜，并通过使用专门设计的橡胶涂层模具来施加所需的温度和压力。研究目标包括通过广泛的模拟和实验获得对过程的更深入的物理理解，创建用于设计模具的强大模拟工具，对工具，橡胶掩模和与复合系统的相互作用的基础材料研究，以及扩展过程能力以允许最终商业化。GOALI的合作伙伴为这项赠款，Kintz塑料公司。（Howes Cave，NY）将协助研究工作的各个方面，并成为这项技术的第一个采用者。如果成功，这项研究的结果将从根本上改变复合材料制造商制造需要高固结压力和温度的中小型层压板和夹层部件的方式。 它将消除复合材料行业面临的主要制造瓶颈之一，即工艺中的高压釜步骤。 一项已发表的研究表明，对于相对复杂的三维复合层压部件，与使用高压釜相比，PCRT在制备时间、固定和经常性成本以及能耗方面提供了数量级的减少，同时仍然提供了类似质量的部件。 预计，类似的结果将被证明为更广泛的零件形状和材料系统作为这项工作的结果。