Development of Tactical Composite Shelter

This SBIR project will demonstrate the feasibility of a novel, low-cost composite material and manufacturing process that will enable the affordable production of tactical composite shelter for military application. The primary goal in Phase I is todemonstrate that the physical, mechanical and structural performance of TYCORT composite sandwich panels made in low-cost, Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) process can meet or exceed the design requirements for composite shelter. TYCOR is anovel, fiber-reinforced foam composite material that has shown significant promise in aerospace and other commercial applications for providing strong, robust, lightweight and low-cost composite sandwich structures. The unique fiber architecture of TYCORcan be exploited to design composite shelters with improved durability at an affordable cost. The combination of TYCOR materials and VARTM process is considered to be an enabling technology for robust and affordable composite structures in many militaryand commercial applications. The proposed composite shelter design is also applicable to shipping containers for military and commercial application. There are numerous commercial applications of this technology in transportation, marine, industrial andconstruction market.