Innovative Discontinuous Long Fiber Molding Compound for Low Cost Platforms

Aircraft structure and secondary parts are manufactured using traditional continuous fiber in prepreg or pre-form configurations.  Limitations in cycle times, material cost, and formulation are inherent to these technologies.  For new low-cost platforms, innovative solutions to dramatically reduce cost, speed up the  manufacturing processes, and provide improved formulation flexibility for constituent fiber/fillers combinations has been difficult to achieve.  Some work to take discontinuous fibers and make sheets for subsequent impregnation have shown potential, but that process still requires a traditional prepreg processing once the discontinuous fibers are formed into a sheet.  Other technologies such as compression molding of sheet molding compounds (SMC) can be low density in the green state and thus require very high pressures to debulk and remove inherent porosity.  NanoSperse proposes to create a fundamentally new class of discontinuous fiber molding compounds by incorporating dry chopped fiber and resin into a fully degassed molding compound through a one step extrusion-type process.  Since the material is fully degassed and compacted into sheets, lower molding pressures and increased cycle times are possible.  If successful, this technology would revolutionize production efficiency of low-cost aircraft and provide a leap forward in design space by enabling incorporation of multifunctional materials into structures