Pre-preg Braiding of Organic Composites
PSI, along with our partner Jordan Valley Innovation Center, is developing the first production pre-preg braiding system.
Capability Description:
Prepreg Tape Braiding enables Affordable, High Rate CMC manufacture.
- Dramatically improves material lay down rate
- Minimizes touch labor
- Leverages qualified prepreg systems
- Improves consistency of component quality
- Eliminates or reduces process steps to further improve rate and reduce process complexity
- Allows manufacture of multiple parts in a single setup/run
Our Large Scale (26’ diameter) Tape Braider System is under construction and scheduled to be on-line in early 2024.
144 carrier braiding system under development at JVIC (Operational Fall 2023)
Key Features:
- Compatible with multiple prepreg systems
- Laydown rates up to 400 lbs/hr of prepreg
- Automated lay-up process
- Repeatable fabrication
- Reduced De-bulk cycles
- Projected 80% reduction in PMC preform cost and 55% reduction in final CMC cost
Benefit to Customer
The payoff for the customer is 3 fold:
- Reduction in cost of producing organic parts is up to 80%; this translates into about 40% cost reduction for the ceramic part.
- Part quality is greatly improved. Hand lamination of bodies of revolution never seem to work. Bulk factors of the pre-preg cause wrinkles, porosity and poor geometric control. Braiding solves the bulk factor problem and greatly improves yield rate further adding to the cost reduction
- Cycle time – with laydown rates between 50 and 150 lbs per hour (depending on # carriers and tape width), PSI could fabricate either 4 aero shells OR 4 flow-paths in one day.
64 carrier system fabricating a tube.