Thermoplastic Composite Driveshafts for Vertical Flight: Progression to TRL 6

Thermoplastic composite driveshafts have demonstrated a 35% weight reduction and over 150% greater post ballistic damage survivability over legacy aluminum designs. This was achieved through the joint efforts of Automated Dynamics, NAVAIR, SURVICE Engineering, UTAS, and Sikorsky under a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II effort. An evolution of previous efforts, this paper describes subsequent work to optimize laminate architecture, materials, and structural qualifications to meet new performance requirements. SURVICE Engineering optimized the design of the driveshafts to meet new performance requirements supplied by Sikorsky. Automated Dynamics used its recently updated additive manufacturing process using high performance thermoplastic composites to rapidly manufacture prototype driveshafts. UTAS assembled and tested the composite driveshafts. The end goal is a high performance composite driveshaft that is a drop-in replacement for the legacy aluminum driveshaft. Driveshafts were tested to advance the program to a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 6.