Advanced Composite Curing System for Aircraft Composite Bonding Operations

The Navy seeks composite curing hardware to effectively repair composite aircraft that contain challenging heat sinking substructures. Existing heat blankets do not produce uniform temperature over the repair area. In addition, the heater controllers are heavy, bulky, and are not user friendly. Lack of uniform heating, due to the inability to compensate for localized heat sinking, can result in under?cured or burned repairs and lead to premature failure of bonded components. We propose to leverage our prior multi?zone heat blanket and controller to develop an Advanced Composite Cure System (ACCS) for the Navy, DoD, and commercial markets. During the Phase I project, we will assemble the ACCS, simulate bonded repairs on challenging heat sinking geometries and develop a preliminary electrical design of the Phase II controller. During Phase II, we will complete the ACCS development and transition the technology to the Navy.