Hat-shaped stiffened composite panels were fabricated by resin transfer molding (RXU) process. As application of these compression load bearing panels in aircraft wings and fuselage increases, this promising manufacturing technique would contribute towards the goal of attaining reduced part counts and cheaper manufacturing costs. Rigid foam which increases the structural efficiency of panels was utilized in this process. Also Balsa wood was considered as an alternative to the rigid foam and employed as a permanent mandrel in fabricating one of The panels. Buckling analysis result by finite element method and modified closed form solution suggested by Agarwal et al (1974) agree. Once this process is fine-tuned, it would provide a cheaper method of fabricating composite hat-stiffened panels.
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