Next Generation Composite Cables and Bolts Designed for High Tensile Strength, Zero Maintenance and Low Cost Automated Fabrication

KaZaK Composites will undertake two advanced product design and development efforts in Phase I. First we will develop a low cost, easily installable, corrosion free, composite attachment system based on a design that eliminates the primary source of mechanical failure in current composite fasteners. Second, we will investigate an innovative material and configuration approach for an advanced composite cable. The proposed cable technology is derived from a composite design solution developed in a Navy Phase II SBIR and currently undergoing sea trials. Each of these developments will provide the Air Force with an electrically-nonconductive, zero maintenance hardware replacement for a currently troublesome metal item used in tall tower construction. In Phase I we will fabricate prototypes of both the composite fastener and the composite cable. Each hardware item will then be subjected to a series of mechanical tests intended to demonstrate the validity of each of the two proposed design innovations, and to suggest avenues for improvement at the initiation of Phase II. Emphasis will be placed on the design of composite systems that are amenable to automated fabrication to ensure that the resulting hardware items can be sold at an acceptably low price.