The Boeing Company

Mitchell J Lee

Robert Loftus

Jason M Robinson

Nicklaus Cummings Kimball

A tooling system may include a cure tool and a biasing element. The cure tool may have a cure tool coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and may be configured for curing a composite article formed of two or more components having dissimilar component CTEs. The biasing element may be fixedly attached to the cure tool and has a biasing element CTE that may be different than the cure tool CTE. The biasing element may be configured such that a combination of the cure tool CTE and the biasing element CTE causes a heat-up displacement in the cure tool when heated and the composite article is cured in a distorted shape. When the cured composite article is cooled, the cured composite article may substantially assume an as-designed shape.

Shape-distorting tooling system for curing composite parts

A coupon geometry that reliably fails in the gauge area of the coupon during fatigue testing. The propensity to fail at the gauge area is imparted by using a bow-tie-shaped coupon coupled with similarly shaped tabs. The test coupons have a bow-tie-shaped profile with tapered sides that converge as they extend from the opposing ends of the coupon to the gauge area, forming a pair of trapezoidal portions (one the mirror image of the other) connected by the gauge area. These trapezoidal portions of the test coupon include the regions where similarly trapezoidal tabs will be adhered to the front and back of the coupon. The test coupon has a minimum width in the gauge area and a constant thickness, and a height of the gauge area is no greater than 3% of a height of the test coupon.

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Scottsdale, AZ, United States of America

Mitchell J Lee