Nevada Composites
Green-AeroSM -- The Next Generation in Rapid-Tooling
Products and Applications from Nevada Composites
- Green-AeroSM single-sided tools for prototyping, short-run manufacturing, repair, or replacement of composite materials
- Green-AeroSM washout mandrels, including for high-temperature exposure
- Green-AeroSM tooling as masters or cauls for making BMI and other composite tooling
Surface Sealing
- Surface must be sealed for composite fabrication
- Conformable sealing/release film that is vacuum-formed to the surface.
- Spray-on coatings to harden and/or seal surface
- Wrap with release tape, or sleeve-seal with shrink-tubing
Case Studies — Single-Sided Tooling
- Reverse engineer existing component to produce a CAD file
- Use Fused Deposition Modeling to make master/mold
- Feasible because master sees no temperature and only rough vacuum
- Master has high-quality surface but is lightweight and porous. (Porosity facilitates vacuum-forming of tool and reduces FDM resin cost.)
- Make next-generation tool on FDM master.
- To seal surface, bag tool surface or apply coating.
- Layup, debulk, and cure as usual: 177°C/350°F & 700 kPa/100 psi
Rapid tooling to produce replacement motorcycle parts
- The Cagiva (Ducati in the U.S.) E900 Elefant is an Italian endurance racing bike manufactured between 1993-99
- The bike is relatively rare. Parts that are shared with other bikes may be available; most body parts are not.
- In about one day we can make a multi-use tool from a damaged part.
- Using this tool, custom replacement parts can be manufactured in a day using vacuum infusion followed by room- or elevated-temperature cure and appropriate finishing and/or painting.
Case Studies — Washout Mandrels
Mandrels with complex features and tolerances of greater than ±0.13 mm (0.005 in.)
- To achieve the high tolerances and complex features required, mandrels were machined from appropriately sized blanks of tooling material.
- Mandrels were coated with our multilayer spray-on coating in all areas exposed during winding. This also served to strengthen the surface of the mandrels.
- Note that this approach can proceed without a master or mold but also can be used to refine tolerances on as-molded tools.
Retrofit ducting for legacy military aircraft produced using Green-AeroSM washout mandrels
- Bellows duct includes metal rings to maintain shape
- Green-AeroSM washout mandrels incorporated this feature
Washout mandrels for very high temperature fabrication
- Autoclave cure at 370°C (700°F) and 1400 kPa (200 psi)
- We have developed our own washout refractory coating that both releases and washes out readily after cure.
- Our tooling withstands the conditions very well, washes out well, and offers a low thermal mass to facilitate composite cure.
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