Innovative Approaches to the Fabrication of Composite Rotary Wing Main Rotor Blade Spars

Commonly, composite rotor blade spars are fabricated by hand layups or other non-optimized, not fully automated procedures. These methods are labor intensive and require many de-bulking steps, making them expensive. The results are often inconsistent due to the nature of work done by hand. In our process, continuous graphite fiber reinforced thermoset prepreg tape will be used in conjunction with our automated fiber placement technology to produce high performance composite main rotor blade spars. Since our process is automated, it provides repeatable and accurate results with less labor involvement. The use of continuous fiber reinforced prepreg tape allows us to tailor the lay-up to suit the design criteria at hand. Our automated process provides low cost effective manufacturing methods for the production of high quality composite structures.