Novel Aerogel Enhanced Structures for Future Aerospace Vehicles

Future generation aircraft demand advancements in performance and multi-functionality in the structures. Areas such as weapons bays, landing gear bays, and avionics require active cooling in order to protect the components from overheating during operation. Aspen Aerogels proposes to team with Northrop Grumman Corporation and Materials Research and Design to develop aerogel insulation solutions for these aircraft structure applications. Aerogels currently are the most effective thermal insulation known, short of hard vacuum. The aerogel blankets or aerogel augmented honeycomb will provide increased thermal insulation for reduced active cooling, weight, and cost in aircraft structure. The Phase I effort demonstrated aerogel enhanced core fabrication and analytical modeling in two dimensions. The Phase II program will continue with that effort, to correlate and expand the analytical model, as well as advance the manufacturing techniques to develop a sandwich core structure with significantly enhanced thermal properties. The material developed can easily be implemented into the structure of future aircraft such as the Long Range Strike Aircraft. Aspen's current commercialization of the aerogel blanket insulation will serve as the basis for transition of the proposed technology to the commercial market.