Pultrusion-Based Production of Next-Generation Composite Missile Canisters

Missile defense rounds such as Patriot PAC-3 are stored, transported and launched from rectangular composite canisters. These canisters are currently made by filament winding. In Phase I KaZaK Composites performed work that suggested significant cost savings could result by pultruding the canister rather than filament winding. Pultrusion is a highly automated technology that replaces part by part manufacturing characteristic of filament winding with a continuous production stream of constant cross section parts. In Phase II KCI will develop a pultrusion-based processing system capable of producing single piece high performance carbon/epoxy composite containers that provide a lower cost alternative to filament winding. Phase II efforts will include the development of tooling and process hardware specialized for making very straight large cross section parts. A pultrusion-optimized canister design will be developed for a specific round, selected after discussion with the Army and Lockheed Martin. After developing an acceptable set of pultrusion processing parameters, KCI will pultrude full scale canisters, then subject these prototypes to a range of tests to verify the ability of the pultruded shell to meet geometric and mechanical performance requirements for the canister. A cost reduction of at least 25% compared to the filament wound baseline is anticipated.