SBIR-STTR Award

Goldsworthy and Associates propose to develop a pultrusion capability as an alternative method for the manufacture of stiffeners and stiffened sections which were previously made by hand layup. The pultrusion process will clearly be capable of fabrication at aircraft quality standards. This will be accomplished by relying on pultrusion machinery which has been developed and proven by G&A. Novel concepts of lock joining and fastenerless joining which were developed and proven for other highly successful designs will also be developed. This will allow for stiffened sections to be assembled quickly into structures. The main goal of the proposed phase I effort will be to provide conceptual designs which can be achieved by pultrusion. Additionally, a weight and cost analysis for these concepts will be provided. Coupon samples will be manufactured and tested in order to obtain essential design data for continued work. Phase I will thus serve as a feasibility study which wll produce the necessary figures of merit for a phase II effort.

W. Brandt Goldsworthy & Associates, Inc. (WBG & AI) proposes to extend and demonstrate a pultrusion technology package, for advanced composite materials, that offers a better product with improved performance and at a lower cost than competing technologies. The significance of this technology for reducing the weight and the cost of high performance Navy hardware, and commercial products has independently been evaluated by Boeing. The Phase II objective is to develop the pultrusion technology into a manufacturing demonstration of flight hardware. It specifically concerns two structural parts of a lifting body that is currently in the R & D stage at Boeing.It is expected that the Phase II program will prove significant innovations in design for pultrusion, pultrusion-injection-die design, new fiber architecture development, and joining technology. The pultruded flight hardware will be delivered for component testing at the conclusion of the basic Phase II program. Due to the continuous nature of the pultrusion process, multiple components will be available at the end of the basic Phase II program.WBG & AI proposes to subsequently excercise the Phase II option in order to assemble the pultruded hardware into a full size lifting body section, in which all the structural load paths are now present. This structure will be delivered for testing to Boeing.