Fiber reinforced composite cores and panels
AssigneeWebcore Technologies, Inc.
InventorsStephen W. Day, Daniel M. Hutcheson, G. Scott Campbell
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A fiber reinforced core is formed from plastics foam material having elongated porous and fibrous webs and/or rovings extending through the foam material. The rovings may extend angularly through the webs, and strips of the foam material may be helically wound with layers of crossing rovings to form the webs. Porous and fibrous skins for the core may be formed by the wound rovings and by parallel continuous rovings, and the foam strips may be formed with internal grooves adjacent the webs and connected by a feeder channel for infusing a hardenable adhesive resin into the grooves and outwardly through the webs to the skins with differential pressure on the resin.
Claims50
A fiber reinforced core adapted for infusion with a hardenable resin and having opposite core surfaces adapted to be attached to corresponding skins, said core comprising plastics foam material forming said core surfaces, a plurality of rows of reinforcing struts extending between said opposite core surfaces, each of said struts comprising porous and fibrous rovings enclosed by said foam material, and said struts having cut and flared end portions overlying at least one of said core surfaces.
A fiber reinforced core panel adapted for use with a hardenable resin and having opposite core surfaces adapted to be attached to corresponding skins, said core panel comprising a plurality of elongated strips of low density cellular material, adjacent said strips having opposing faces within an interior of said core panel between said opposite core surfaces, webs of fibrous material separating said opposing faces of said adjacent strips and extending between said opposite core surfaces, portions of said webs being exposed at said opposite core surfaces, a plurality of rows of reinforcing struts extending between said opposite core surfaces at an acute angle relative to said webs and extending through said webs at locations spaced from said core surfaces, said struts comprising fibrous rovings enclosed by said strips, and said webs and the intersecting said struts cooperating to resist buckling of said webs and said struts within said strips under loading for substantially increasing the strength of a structural panel incorporating said core panel.
A fiber reinforced core panel adapted for use with a hardenable resin and having opposite core surfaces adapted to be attached to corresponding skins, said core panel comprising a plurality of elongated strips of low density cellular material, a first layer of fibrous ravings continuously and helically surrounding each of said strips along the length thereof, a second layer of fibrous rovings continuously and helically surrounding said first layer on each said strip along the length thereof, said rovings in said second layer extend helically in an opposite direction and crossing said rovings in said first layer, said elongated strips and said helically surrounding rovings are connected together to form a unitized said core panel with said ravings extending over said core surfaces for receiving the skins and adapted to be moved as a preform unit to a molding process where the resin is hardened.
A fiber reinforced core panel adapted for use with a hardenable resin and having opposite core surfaces adapted to be attached to corresponding skins, said core panel comprising a plurality of elongated strips of low density cellular material, a layer of fibrous rovings continuously and helically surrounding each of said strips along the length thereof, said elongated strips and said helically surrounding rovings are connected together to form a unitized said core panel, said rovings extending continuously over said opposite core surfaces to substantially increase the area of resin bond between said rovings and the skins, said rovings also extending completely through the thickness of said core panel between said strips to tie the skins together, and said core panel being movable as a unit to a molding process where the resin is hardened.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.