ADVANCED CERAMICS MANUFACTURING, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: DLA152-001

ADVANCED CERAMICS MANUFACTURING, LLC — SBIR Phase I award from Department of Defense.

Amount
$99,991
Agency
Department of Defense · Defense Logistics Agency
Program / Phase
SBIR · Phase I
Topic
DLA152-001
Solicitation
2015.2
NAICS
Place of performance
AZ
Period
2015-09-26 → 2016-09-25

Description

A new approach to manufacturing is needed to streamline the logistics of maintaining legacy aircraft. Recently, Advanced Ceramics Manufacturing (ACM) developed a water soluble tooling technology (FastCore) that can reduce the cost of Fiber Reinforced Plastics (FRP) composite components. The FastCore family of products allows ACM to rapidly create water soluble mandrels for composite manufacturers. The challenge is to transition to high rate production. ACM can manufacture production or replacement parts within a very short lead time, provided we can improve our manufacturing processes that involve water removal. The objective of this Phase I proposal is to determine the technical and commercial feasibility of using microwave technology to cure tooling in minutes instead of days, significantly increasing our throughput capacity dramatically reduce cost. This will allow discrete composite parts to also achieve faster production rates and reduced cost.