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Heated Thermoplastic Fiber Placement Head for NASA Langley Research Center

Award Information
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Branch: N/A
Contract: NNL04AB24P
Agency Tracking Number: 034127
Amount: $69,714.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: A4.04
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2003
Award Year: 2004
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2004-01-16
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2004-07-19
Small Business Information
134 B Sandy Drive
Newark, DE 19713-1147
United States
DUNS: 960998474
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Mark Gruber
 Principal Investigator
 (302) 369-5390
 mgruber@accudynesys.com
Business Contact
 Mark Gruber
Title: Senior Partner
Phone: (302) 369-5390
Email: mgruber@accudynesys.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

Reduced mass composite materials are crucial to the success of aerospace systems, but are inhibited by expensive autoclave consolidation, especially for large parts. To remedy this, NASA-LaRC has been developing cost-effective high-performance thermoplastic composite materials for years. NASA materials could dramatically reduce the cost of large aerospace structures, because those materials avoid the autoclave. However, NASA lacks a robust, cost-effective fabrication process to tow-place these emerging materials into laminates, and thus can?t evaluate their usefulness to industry.

This program develops for NASA-LaRC the processing equipment that allows material evaluation and allows out-of-autoclave fiber placement. In particular, this program will deliver a heated in situ deposition head to fit on NASA-LaRCs placement machine. Heads can also be sold to industrial companies for existing placement machines so that aerospace composites can be fabricated out of the autoclave.

In phase I, the deposition head will be designed and reviewed with NASA. The process window requirements for the placement head for NASA materials will be verified. In phase II, we will complete the design, fabricate, install, and prove-out the head equipment. We then start up the deposition head at NASA so that the emerging NASA-LaRC materials can be proven in laminates.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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