The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 19, 2000
Filed:
Sep. 29, 1998
Gregory T Kassuelke, Maple Grove, MN (US);
Stephen A Haglund, Minnetonka, MN (US);
Alliant Techsystems Inc., Hopkins, MN (US);
Abstract
A welding method controls the welding temperature, welding cycle time, and welding pressure for fabrication of composite structural parts. A welding unit welds multiple plies of thermoplastic prepreg into welded multi-ply assemblies by concentrating welds along the thermoplastic prepreg plies at localized and strategic positions. Two platens weld a plurality of the multi-ply assemblies into a layup using a plurality of heated pins. The heated pins are hollow to reduce surface heating during welding and are non-uniformly shaped to allow indexing of the layup. After the layup is cut into a plurality of thermoplastic prepreg segments along a layup pattern, the thermoplastic prepreg segments are indexed according to the weld marks impressed by the non-uniformly shaped heated pins. The thermoplastic prepreg segments are formed into kits or wedges by stacking smaller thermoplastic prepreg segments on top of larger thermoplastic prepreg segments.