The Boeing Company

Richard G Struve

David Paul Banks

Adam Robert Weston

Randall S Smith

Howard J Van Laeken

Ronald M Olive

Nigel G Moores

Hossein Farange

Rinhold E Wilde

Insulation for use in an aircraft fuselage is formed wherein at least one layer made from an open-celled foam that provides acoustic and thermal insulation. The open-celled foam is compression fitted into the airplane fuselage so as to provide effective attachment to the fuselage. The open-celled foam requires minimal attachment treatments. Further, compression fit of the open cell layer is used as an interface around brackets and unrelated hardware to provide superior close-out of gaps that would normally occur using traditional insulation to bracket interfaces. The preferred foam for the open celled compression layer is also relatively moisture resistant (i.e. hydrophobic) in nature and is compressible to between about 0.5 and 10 percent compression, with about 2% compression being ideal for most applications.

Foam composite insulation for aircraft

A process for bending a thermoplastic skinned honeycomb core panel includes clamping a planar portion of the panel between upper and lower platens to hold the panel against movement parallel to the plane of the planar portion. A linear band of a face sheet on one side of the panel is heated with a heater bar to soften resin in the face sheet and disbond adhesive holding the face sheet to the honeycomb core. The heater bar is lifted away from the face sheet, forming the linear band into a bubble separated away from the honeycomb core. A distal leg of the panel, outboard of the clamped portion, is bent around a heated anvil along an axis parallel to the linear band to form a bend having an inside radius, with the bubble coinciding with the inside radius. The bubble collapses around the inside radius and forms an overlapping flap of face sheet material. The overlapping flap of face sheet material is pressed in a fold between the anvil and the bent leg of the panel, and the leg is held in the bent position while resin in the flap freezes in the fold.

Thermoplastic panel bending

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Richard G Struve