Composites Affordability Initiative (Preprint).

摘要

In the mid 1990's, the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) recognized that despite the potential of advanced composites to drastically reduce aircraft structural weights compared to conventional metal structures, the aircraft industry was reluctant to implement them in new aircraft. As a result, AFRL launched the Composites Affordability Initiative (CAI) to address these concerns. CAI found that the key to affordability in composites was to reduce assembly costs through the integration of parts and by bonding parts, structural assembly costs could be drastically reduced. As a result, CAI's objective was to establish the confidence to fly large integrated and bonded structures. A partnership between AFRL, the Office of Naval Research, Bell Helicopter, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman was established to develop technologies to meet this objective. This initiative required a multidisciplinary approach: maturation of materials and processes, an understanding of the structural behavior of bonded joints, quality assurance and nondestructive evaluation to ensure bonded joints remain bonded throughout an aircraft's service life, and the buy off of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) aircraft certification authorities. An assessment will be provided of the technical achievements, technology transition successes and failures, and the program structure and teaming arrangements.