Material Advances
Recent advances in Out-of-Autoclave (OOA) processes hold promise for improving performance and lowering costs for composite structures. Using vacuum-bag-only (VBO) for atmospheric pressures, the new OOA processes promise to deliver the less than 1 percent void content required for aerospace primary structures. Led by material scientists at Air Force Research Lab, the technique would save the costs of constructing and installing large structure autoclaves ($100M saved at NASA) and making small production runs of 100 aircraft economically viable.
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