BLADDER MOLDING A WET WOUND PREFORM

摘要

CompositeTek was approached to develop and manufacture a lightweight, high stiffness, carbon/epoxy square beam with precision outside dimensional control. The carbon/epoxy beam would replace a ceramic beam currently in production, and therefore would need to meet or exceed baseline mechanical properties, be reliably manufacturable in quantities of 250-300 units/year, and be cost competitive to the ceramic beam currently in the marketplace A variation of wet filament winding has been successfully developed to manufacture this type of product. An inner bag, or bladder, is inserted into a filament wet wound perform, which is then bagged and autoclave cured in a metallic female tool. Instead of consolidating the laminate onto a male inner tool, the inner bladder allows autoclave pressure to expand and consolidate the laminate to the female outer tool. This process takes advantage of the affordability and reliability provided by filament winding, while achieving the high degree of dimensional control on the outer surface of the beam.