soaring into the future

Marc Ramsey wrote:
Shawn wrote:
Brad wrote:
Here is disagree. Greg is fortunate to have use of the huge
autoclave at the Lancair/Columbia factory, I think. Although Out
of Autoclave could be done with the right tooling and materials.
But I think wet layup and vacuum bagging would be cheaper.

Agreed, I'm thinking to make a big dent in glider price (I'm in the
depressed Dollar US, and I *won't* buy a Chinese glider) the
method of manufacturing will have to be very different. More
composite manufacturers making aircraft and wind turbine parts
might make more autoclave space available. Heated molds are a
possibility (read about it on a wind turbine site). I suspect new
composite technology is coming along all the time (not my field).
A fuselage formed by winding carbon fiber tape around a male mold
seems pretty straightforward, spars too. I don't know if a wing
could be made with a precise enough profile in this way,
interesting thought though. I know there are specialty companies
applying all sorts of new composite technology. Farming out rather
than investing in house might make a lot of sense in the small
numbers world of sailplane manufacturing. Save on tooling, benefit
from the sub's economy of scale. Certainly not business as usual
in the glider industry.

The Edgley EA9 was primarily constructed from CNC laser cut composite
honeycomb panels, wrapped around and bonded to ribs and formers.
Clearly this can't produce a super accurate wing profile, but might
result in some reduction in the labor required to produce wing or
fuselage parts.

Different altogether than winding tape around a mold.
Also the EA9 was another exercise in butt ugly glider. Maybe that was
just the green color :-p

From this site:
http://www.advancedcompositetraders.com/html/news.html

Fiber placement and tape laying

The fiber placement process automatically places multiple individual
pre-impregnated tows onto a mandrel at high speed, using a
numerically controlled placement head to dispense, clamp, cut and
restart each tow during placement. Minimum cut length (the shortest
tow length a machine can lay down) is the essential ply-shape
determinant. The fiber placement heads can be attached to a 5-axis
gantry or retrofitted to a filament winder or delivered as a turnkey
custom system. Machines are available with dual mandrel stations to
increase productivity. Advantages of fiber place~ ment fabrication
include speed, reduced material scrap and labor costs, parts
consolidation and improved part-to-part uniformity. The process is
employed when producing large thermoset parts with complex shapes.

Tape laying is an even speedier auto~ mated process in which
prepregged tape, rather than single tows, is laid down con~
continuously to form parts. It is often used for parts with highly
complex contours or angles. Tape lay up is versatile, allowing breaks
in the process and easy direction changes. Capital expenditures for
computer-driven, automated equipment can be significant, however.
Suitable for both simple and complex parts, tape laying is the
current method of choice for wing skin panels on the F-22 Raptor
fighter jet.

As I said before, this would be farmed out to a subcontractor who's
already made the capital investment, unless the glider world sees really
amazing growth.

Shawn