DEVELOPMENT OF A CURE-ON-THE-FLY AUTOMATED TAPE PLACEMENT MACHINE FOR ELECTRON BEAM CURABLE PREPREGS

摘要

Boeing has designed and built an Electron Beam (EB) Cure-On-The-Fly Automated Tape Placement (ATP) machine for NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) to conduct materials and process development trials. During the tape laying process, an electron gun (E-gun) initiates reaction of the matrix resin causing the cure of the prepreg in a layer by layer manner. This technique is intended to allow the fabrication of large structures without the large capital and tooling expenditures inherent in autoclave curing. It also provides significant consolidation pressure during curing which is not available during standard electron beam curing of composites. The machine is capable of automatically laying 7.62 cm wide composite prepreg for the fabrication of flat laminates up to 1 m by 1 m with any combination of 0°, 90°, and 45° plies. The placement head was built by Applied Poleramic, Inc., and the E-gun was built by Electron Solutions, Inc. The ATP-EB device has been installed at the Boeing Radiation Effects Laboratory (BREL). Its capability has been safely and effectively demonstrated by tape laying and electron beam curing a graphite-epoxy laminate in-situ.