Date of Award

Spring 5-2015

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Committee Chair

Jeffery Wiggins

Committee Chair Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Committee Member 2

Sarah Morgan

Committee Member 2 Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Committee Member 3

Sergei Nazarenko

Committee Member 3 Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Abstract

Polymer matrix composites are being used to manufacture light weight, high stiffness aircraft structures. These structures are often manufactured from carbon fiber reinforced epoxy. When these structures are damaged, they must be repaired to restore strength to the component to avoid the cost and logistics of having replacements parts. Occasionally, these repairs require tooling in order to make a quality repair, however, tooling generally has a long lead time. Additive manufacturing could be used to manufacture rapid tooling to create tooling for composite repairs. The issue is that polymer printed tooling has a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) than the composites that are being cured on them. This research investigates the addition of negative CTE fillers in polymers to reduce CTE to more closely match composites to reduce CTE mismatch and part distortion during elevated temperature cure.

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