Low cost damage tolerant composite fabrication

The resin transfer molding (RTM) process applied to composite aircraft parts offers the potential for using low cost resin systems with dry graphite fabrics that can be significantly less expensive than prepreg tape fabricated components. Stitched graphite fabric composites have demonstrated compression after impact failure performance that equals or exceeds that of thermoplastic or tough thermoset matrix composites. This paper reviews methods developed to fabricate complex shape composite parts using stitched graphite fabrics to increase damage tolerance with RTM processes to reduce fabrication cost.