Loaded syntactic foam-core material
AssigneeMcDonnell Douglas Corporation
InventorsGregory P. Nowak, Alan F. Tegeler, Tracy L. Timmons
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A syntactic foam-core material and method for its production are disclosed wherein glass microspheres and chopped fiberglass are dispersed within a slurry comprised of a suitable resin such as an epoxy and a suitable solvent such as methyl ethyl ketone. Under carefully controlled vacuum and rate of addition conditions, the microspheres and chopped fiberglass are added to the slurry to form a light weight syntactic foam-core material. The material may either be stored under cold conditions for use at a later time or it may be shaped and/or molded to conform to a desired configuration which, for example, may correspond with a desired component part. After curing, the material may be machined to final dimensions.
Claims4
A method for preparing a readily conformable, high strength, low density syntactic foam-core composite comprising the steps of:
- (a) mixing 56 parts by weight of a resin and 8 parts by weight of a solvent for the resin to form a resin-solvent system;
- (b) separately mixing 1.5 parts by weight particulate carbon and 30 parts by weight of a solvent for the resin to produce a slurry, dismebrating the resulting slurry, and blending the dismembrated slurry with the resin-solvent system to thereby form a loaded resin-solvent system;
- (c) adding 41 parts by weight of microspheres and 3 parts by weight of fiberglass to the loaded resin-solvent mixture to thereby form a loaded resin-solvent-microsphere system;
- (d) mixing the resin-solvent-microsphere system under vacuum to extract a portion of the solvent from the resin until no more than 10 but greater than 7 parts by weight of solvent remain to create a fully admixed system;
- (e) at least partially curing the resin in the fully admixed system by extracting more than one-half of the remaining solvent.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.