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Smart Tooling for Manufacturing Composites
Completed
Description
CRG's shape memory polymer (SMP) tooling technologies, Smart Tooling, offer cutting-edge manufacturing solutions that can meet the construction needs of all future composite platforms and systems. Development and implementation of Smart Tooling, Smart Mandrels and SMP Bladders, offers end users significant opportunities to save direct expense for tooling cost and manufacturing labor to fabricate complex geometry and trapped composites. CRG's concept for a high temperature mandrel product is to leverage a proven Smart Mandrel process and replace the current material system with a novel SMP capable of remaining rigid at the 350 F laminate cure temperatures then softening following cure for extraction.
Details
| Technology area | Materials, Structures, Mechanical Systems, and Manufacturing > Manufacturing > Digital Transformation Technologies for Manufacturing |
| Program | Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer (SBIR/STTR) |
| Lead organization | Cornerstone Research Group, Inc., Miamisburg, OH |
| Start date | 2013-03-27 |
| End date | 2013-09-26 |
Project contacts
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How to get involved
This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.
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