Rapid Adhesive Induction Bonding of Pultruded Aerospace Structures

Joining advanced composite materials is one of the greatest obstacles to proliferating their use in aerospace structures. Another hindrance is the high cost of manufacturing advanced composite structures using conventional methods. The present trend in both the automotive and aerospace industries is lighter weight, energy efficient structures. In the aerospace community, the use of advanced composite structures has the potential for weight reductions of 35 to 40 percent as compared with the use of conventional aluminum alloys. However, this advantage is offset by the higher cost of manufacturing in using conventional composite technology.

This paper identifies pultrusion and induction bonding as potential methods for manufacturing lightweight high-strength advanced composite structures.