Environmentally Stable Joint Manufacturing Technologies

SDCs environmentally stable composite joint can be manufactured at costs on the order of steel equivalents, eliminate up to 98% of corrosion prevention costs, and provide an ROI greater than 10. SDCs ESC joint was demonstrated at TRL 4 to be structurally equivalent to comparable metal structures and to eliminate corrosive moisture ingress to critical regions of a structure. This DLA Phase I SBIR will focus on advancement of the manufacturing readiness level (MRL) of the ESC joint concept to MRL 5 and MRL 8 during Phase II. SDC has designed the ESC joint for high throughput production runs and low cost one-offs using an automated compression molding and/or thermoforming process that can churn out parts at a significantly reduced cost than traditional hand laid-up composite parts. The overall objective of the Phase I program is establish manufacturing techniques for the environmentally stable hybrid composite joint of a tower like structure that reduce the cost of civil composite components to or below that of comparable steel or aluminum members. At a comparable cost per part, composite members could save the DoD billions of dollars in corrosion costs over structures lifetimes.