Next Generation Manufacturing for Advanced Composite

Advanced composites are fabricated inefficiently in pressurized autoclave ovens that are expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. They further require costly and long lead-time molding tools to tolerate the applied pressure. The SimpliMade process uses low-cost heated tools (SimpliHeat) where energy scales with part surface area rather than volume, and a porous polymeric veil (SimpliSILC) to enable local capillary pressure between plies. This results in high-quality void-free composite laminates that can be cured faster, at a fraction of the energy consumption, while maintaining in-plane properties and improving out-of-plane properties and damage tolerance.