CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/450689
CompositesWorld.com 37 NEWS N E W S N S N E W S E N W S W CFRP Camera Boom good knowledge of its processing and it aforded us the short cycle time and fast tooling we needed." NONA Composites, in fact, was formed by CRG to commercialize it. Matured through NASA-funded SBIR Phase I and II large-structure, carbon fber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) tooling programs, the resin enables production of tooling and parts with operating temperatures of 204°C and 177°C, respec- tively, with no heat source beyond the resin's exotherm during cure. "We did evaluate other systems," he notes, "but the NONA cure cycle was so fast, we didn't even have to rely on an oven." While NONA Composites initiated its tooling and beam manu- facturing processes, CRG and Advantic fnished a variety of struc- tural analyses, using Dassault Systèmes' (Velizy-Villacoublay, France) Abaqus fnite element analysis (FEA) suite and CATIA for solid modeling. Composite laminate properties were modeled in Helius:CompositePro, which is now Autodesk (San Rafael, CA, US) Simulation Composite Design 2014. "We did a lot of testing to validate the design," says Dietsch. "Tis was part of the qual- ity-control process we developed and documented as part of the 5 Demolded parts (C-channels are shown at right) needed trimming before assembly. Flat panels (inset) were outsourced for waterjet cutting to save time. 6 Flat plates and C-channels were bonded together, using this custom-built jig and an acrylic adhesive flled with glass microbeads that helped maintain a consistent bondline thickness during assembly. 7 Each bonded assembly was then drilled and riveted to produce a bonded/ bolted box beam section (left). A special assembly jig (right) then mated adjacent sections to ensure precise alignment for machining of the holes that would enable workers to bolt sections into the fnal beam structure. 8 On week six, the 12 box beam sections were mated and bolted together for the frst time. Subsequently, the beam was disassembled and reassembled before each test use, as part of the shakedown trials performed prior to shipment of the REACH system to the WIPP site. Source (all step photos) | NONA Composites