Material Coefficient of Thermal Expansion Investigation for Use in Additive Manufacturing Fused Deposition Modeling for Composite Tooling

<p>Polymer matrix composites are being used to manufacture light weight, high stiffness aircraft structures. These structures are often manufactured from carbon fiber reinforced epoxy. When these structures are damaged, they must be repaired to restore strength to the component to avoid the cost and logistics of having replacements parts. Occasionally, these repairs require tooling in order to make a quality repair, however, tooling generally has a long lead time. Additive manufacturing could be used to manufacture rapid tooling to create tooling for composite repairs. The issue is that polymer printed tooling has a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) than the composites that are being cured on them. This research investigates the addition of negative CTE fillers in polymers to reduce CTE to more closely match composites to reduce CTE mismatch and part distortion during elevated temperature cure.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Miller, Daniel Joseph

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jeffery Wiggins
• Sarah Morgan
• Sergei Nazarenko

• Thermal Expansion
• composite tooling
• Polymer and Organic Materials

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/85

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1083