PUSHING THE PULTRUSION ENVELOPE -- BIGGER, SMALLER, MORE DETAILED, NEW MATERIALS

摘要

Pultrusion is one of the most commercially successful composite manufacturing processes, capable of making low cost, high quality parts with a minimum of touch labor. Most commercially available pultruded products are made using E-glass fiber in polyester or vinyl ester matrix. Width of pultruded parts typically ranges from a millimeter to a meter. In this paper, pultrusion developments at KaZaK Composites that fall considerably outside the conventional pultrusion window will be described in an effort to demonstrate that the pultrusion process can be applied to a wide variety of specialized, high performance applications with the same cost effectiveness as conventional commercial pultrusion. Described pultrusion applications include: 1) Graphite/epoxy components for the largest structure ever deployed from the Space Shuttle, the 61 meter long, zero thermal expansion SRTM boom, 2) Carbon/carbon precursor material in complex geometries for high temperature furnaces and space applications, 3) Very small (<0.5-mm), hybrid, and complex sections for heat pipes and other space applications, 4) Damage resistant polyurethane materials with strain to failure in excess of 100 percent, and 5) Pier deck and ship superstructure using KCI pultrusion equipment capable of making parts up to 3.1-meter wide and 0.3-meter thick.