Paper number 864

DESIGN AND TESTING OF IN-SITU CONSOLIDATED THICK HIGH PERFORMANCE THERMOPLASTICS

George F. Leon¹, Jeffrey Hall¹, James J. Kelly², Raymond Bohlmann³

1General Dynamics Electric Boat Corporation
75 Eastern Point Rd., Groton, CT 06365 USA
2Office of Naval Research
800 N. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22217 USA
3The Boeing Company
P.O. Box 516, St. Louis, MO 63166 USA

Summary

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a major technology effort to develop and demonstrate cost-effective, advanced fabrication methods for high performance, thick, graphite composite applications for future marine structures. One of the lower cost fabrication methods explored was auto-consolidated fiber placement of graphite thermoplastics. However, because the as-fabricated structure has material properties and strengths significantly different from flat autoclave consolidated coupons, a material characterization process was developed which quantified as-fabricated material properties, strengths and allowables for design. This paper presents the results of the comparison between auto-consolidated and autoclaved graphite thermoplastics, AS4/PPS and AS4/PEEK. This work was sponsored by DARPA and Office of Naval Research.

Keywords

thermoplastics, evaluation, testing, in-situ consolidation, material characterization, design.