T. Berry
JetZero, California, United States
Keywords: Advanced Manufacturing, Composites, Lightweight Structures, Efficiency, Labor Reduction, Simplification, Optimization, Aircraft, Tanker
Current state of the art for composite structures consists of prepreg materials that require significant capital equipment investment and do not result in the lightest possible hardware being manufactured. In addition, prepreg materials do not allow the creation of large, unitized structures and require considerable installation of fasteners to join subcomponents together to form an assembly. To improve upon this, JetZero is leveraging dry carbon fabrics that can be joined in their pre-infused state through use of Kevlar stitching, allowing a large non-precision preform to be assembled without requiring fasteners before resin is applied into a mold to create a large carbon fiber reinforced polymer part. Precision is realized with a simple mold and trimming/drilling operations after the part is fabricated. This work builds off NASA’s PRSEUS project that demonstrated the viability of the core technology that enables this approach, including for the production of shaped aircraft and other pressurized structures. In this presentation, JetZero will detail the approach to producing such large, unitized structures, the design and manufacturing considerations therein, and the applicability across a wide array of defense platforms, including JetZero’s own Blended Wing Body (BWB) air-to-air refueling tanker.