Low-Cost Manufacturing Techniques Enabling Design for Manufacture of Attritable Aircraft Primary Structure

This presentation will focus on high-rate compatible, low-cost, composite manufacturing processes that will support the emerging eVTOL and Attritable aerospace markets. The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) funded the "Design for Manufacture of Attritable Aircraft Primary Structures (DMAAPS) program to explore the effectiveness of novel tooling technologies (Smart Tooling), lower-cost raw materials (dry fiber and infusion vs. pre-preg), and automation (braiding and overbraiding) to manufacture composite structures in support of the Attritable segment. The program used the Kratos XQ-58A aircraft as a baseline and compared cost, rate, and quality of composite structures (fuselage, wings, and inlet duct) manufactured using automated braiding techniques and resin infusion against baseline hand applied and autoclave cured pre-preg components. This presentation will review the results achieved during this program including a technical review of the manufacturing processes, part quality, and capable build volumes. This program build and tested full scale composite structures for the Kratos XQ-58A. All data reviewed will be from actual builds, not theoretical case studies.