Manufacture of aerospace-grade thermoset and thermoplastic composites via nanoengineered thermal processing

Aerospace manufacturers continue to rely on composite materials to make aerovehicles lighter and stronger, particularly employing carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) using carbon microfiber reinforcement with thermoset and thermoplastic polymer matrices. With the increasing use of such composites, the need for energy-efficient, cost-effective methods to produce composite structures is desired. Traditional curing processes such as autoclaves and ovens rely on convective heat transfer, which has fundamental inefficiencies and several limitations including infrastructure cost and throughput bottlenecks. Similarly, hot presses (usually for thermoplastic matrices) for processing composites through conductive heat transfer are limited to a narrow range of part geometries. Direct Joule heating with carbon nanotube (CNT) film network heaters has shown significant promise to overcome these key manufacturing challenges of composites in the aerospace industry.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Daso, Frederick O.(Frederick Odien)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Brian L. Wardle.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122408

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122408