The Boeing Company

Rinhold E Wilde

David Paul Banks

Howard J Van Laeken

Ronald M Olive

Richard G Struve

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.

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Arlington, WA, United States of America

Rinhold E Wilde