COST-EFFECTIVE PRODUCTION OF HELICOPTER ENERGY-ABSORBING SUBFLOOR STRUCTURES WITH ADVANCED THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITES

The technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness of using advanced thermoplastic composite materials and the thermoforming process to produce helicopter energy-absorbing (EA) subfloor structures was investigated under a U.S. Army program. The investigation was structured with two primary objectives to ensure appropriate assessment of the suitability of thermoplastic composites in this application. The first objective was to compare the performance of a selected thermoplastic composite material system against that of a baseline thermoset system by fabricating and testing similar structures from each material system. The second objective was to assess the relative cost-effectiveness of thermoset and thermoplastic systems by tracking actual costs associated with manufacturing test specimens from each material system. These costs were then extrapolated to a generic helicopter subfloor for comparison. The thermoplastic subfloor specimens were shown to provide equivalent or better EA performance than the baseline thermoset specimens. Using the thermoplastic system in the EA subfloor application was also shown to be more cost-effective than the baseline thermoset system when production-representative quantities are considered.