Northern Arizona University

NAU Senior Design 2007-2008.

This is Prepreg commonly used in composites today.

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                 The scope of this project is to design and analyze a pressurized tooling process for composites lay-ups to be used as an alternative to an autoclaved process. This will include the design and study of an inflatable mandrel with an outer female mold. The analysis will begin with an in depth study of the pressure distribution of three processes: vacuum bagging, vacuum bagging with an autoclave, and vacuum bagging with an inflatable inner mandrel. The purpose of this analysis is to see if the inflatable mandrel will be able to achieve pressures comparable to what someone would see using an autoclave. It would also be done to see where there might be pressure concentrations in the various processes. Another study would be done using AcuSim, a Computational Fluid Dynamics program with heat transfer analysis capabilities, to determine the heat flux in the outer female mold. We will use the analysis from this to redesign the mold in such a way that the composite part will be subjected to an even transient temperature distribution during the curing cycle. The final aspect of this study will be to create a physical testing regime to validate the analysis done in this study. This testing regime will be designed so that another capstone group or a graduate student may be able to pick up the project and implement the testing regime to corroborate the analytical work done this semester with a desired output of a published technical paper on the findings.

For General inquires and questions.

 

E-mail Clark Andrews

cca8@nau.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Last Updated 4/12/08

An open Invitation:

 

This is an open invitation to our design presentation and poster session. The presentation will be held at the du Bois on the NAU campus on April 18th. Our presentation will be in the Fremont Room at 10:30 am. Our presentation will cover what we have worked on for the last two semesters and will reflect on any findings we have come across. For direction on how to get there click here.

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Scope