High Strength Composite System for Ships

Composite materials have become ubiquitous over the past two decades with greater use in naval structures due to the high specific strength, stiffness, and toughness offered with respect to other engineering materials. While fiber reinforced polymers have found wide use in commercial applications, currently used materials are costly and require extended cure times which greatly increases manufacturing cost and consequently part cost. Furthermore, polymer composites are susceptible to combustion which poses challenges for marine and transportation structures. The File, Smoke and Toxicity (FST) performance of a polymer is of critical importance in naval applications where sailors are often in confined spaces with restricted ventilation. While polymers such as phenolics and polyimides have been widely utilized for fire-resistant materials, phenolics offer poor mechanical properties and polyimides are costly and challenging to process. Current approaches to the development of fire-resistant fiber reinforced polymer matrix composite materials have typically required a high-volume fraction of additives leading to degradation of the mechanical properties or unacceptably high density. Trimer Technologies has developed a novel low-cost resin system that exhibits inherent non-flammability with excellent mechanical properties that match or exceed the highest performance aerospace resins. In addition to the strength, stiffness, durability and FST performance of Trimer’s resin, it has a low viscosity and long gel time enabling the rapid infusion of large structures while providing a rapid out of autoclave cure that only requires minutes vs the hours long cure time of current resin systems. With no additives, Trimer’s resin can greatly exceed the requirements of FAR 25.853 for aviation structures and the requirements for smoke density, smoke toxicity and vertical flame spread of MIL-STD-2031. The objective of this SBIR Phase II program is to develop a composite material system that can meet the Navy’s FST requirements without compromising strength, durability or density. Trimer will perform extensive resin development to further improve the FST properties as well as mechanical testing to validate the strength, stiffness and fatigue resistance of the materials developed. The ultimate outcome of this program will be a new resin system which exceeds the FST and strength requirements while being low-cost and enabling the infusion of large naval structures.