Author Topic: Possibly a better way to make RCC parts?  (Read 831 times)

Offline john smith 19

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Possibly a better way to make RCC parts?
« on: 04/08/2016 07:52 pm »
I'm not sure if this has been suggested before.

Looking at the leading edges of the Shuttle I was struck by how these parts seemed to laid up by hand. Hand layup is not necessarily bad but it does mean the parts are critically dependent on the skills of the team doing the layup.

This seems to be a special problem for hollow, open section parts

What I had in mind is to treat such parts as 2 halves of a common cylindrical shape. This would allow the part to be made on filament winding or pultrusion machines (these can wind parts several metres across) then splitting the part using water jet or physical cutters to preserve the thermal properties into several sections, both long ways and into segments.

This means the part can now leverage the consistency and repeatability of such machines.

I thought of this approach before I saw the actual Shuttle leading edge parts and how each has an end cap. Obviously that would not be incorporated in this approach. The question becomes could a new design avoid using end caps.

I don't know if this is not already SOP in the industry but it seems like a good way to lower the cost of certain types of parts made in RCC.



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