Rapid Prototyping of Composite Structures

This progress report for the project Rapid Production of Composite Structures covers the period from July 14, 1997 to June 30, 1998. It will present a short overview of the project, followed by the results to date and plans for the future. The goal of this research is to provide a minimum 100x reduction in the time required to produce arbitrary, laminated products without the need for a separate mold or an autoclave. It will accomplish this by developing the science underlying the rapid production of composite structures, specifically those of carbon fiber-epoxy materials. This scientific understanding will be reduced to practice in a demonstration device that will produce a part on the order of 12" by 12" by 6". Work in the past year has focussed on developing an understanding of the materials issues and of the machine design issues. Our initial goal was to use UV cureable resins to accomplish full cure on the machine. Therefore, we have centered our materials work around whether or not UV cureable resins will work. Currently, the answer seems to be that they will not work, because UV light cannot penetrate the carbon fibers, and because no "shadow" curing seems to occur. As a result, non-UV cureable resins are being investigated. This has resulted in a change in the machine design focus. We are now looking into a "dip and place" machine design, whereby a prepreg layer would have one side coated with a curing agent, and then would be placed onto the previous layer. This would lead to cure at the interface, but not to the top of the layer. The formulation of the resins to accomplish this task at room or slightly elevated temperatures is being investigated, as is the machine design needed to apply the curing agent and then cure or partially cure the part. A final, out-of-autoclave, post-cure may be needed with this strategy, as final cure on the machine may not be possible, as it was for the initial UV cure strategy. The remainder of this report details the progress in the materials and machine design areas. Materials Development The material system must be designed to fulfill the following requirements: to reduce the time and labor requirements of typical cure cycles; to reduce the thermal stresses developed during conventional heat curing; and to develop a structure that the build sequence requires. In order to accomplish these goals, there have been parallel tracks of investigation. One area has tested photopolymerizable (ultraviolet (UV) curable) materials and combinations of these materials with standard heat curing resins. The second area has investigated resins that cure rapidly at room or low heat temperatures. The main goal of these investigations has been to identify a system that will rapidly set or cure at room temperature during a tape lay-up process and hold its structure during a post-cure cycle.