Low Cost Composite Structure For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This Phase II SBIR project is directed towards developing TYCOR(tm) fiber reinforced foam composite materials and sandwich panels for low cost design and manufacturing of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) airframe fuselage and other components.TYCOR composite material has been developed and patented by WebCore Technologies, Inc. of Dayton, Ohio. TYCOR materials are ideally suited for structural applications that require low cost, damage tolerant composite sandwich panels. WebCore's patentedprocess integrates dry glass or carbon fiber reinforcements in a three-dimensional geodesic architecture through the thickness of low-density foam. TYCOR materials are designed for low-cost vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process, where theporous fiber reinforcements act as resin flow channels during molding and the entire core and skin assembly co-cures to produce an integrated robust structure.The initial work done in Phase I has shown significant promise and proven the feasibility of manufacturing UAV airframe components with TYCOR composite materials in VARTM process. Phase II work will involve development of automated manufacturing process,materials testing and design database, design and analysis tools, quality assurance methods and VARTM molding process for TYCOR materials and products.