Project Title: 

04.01-8822
Project Title:Robotic Winding in a Plasma Spray High Temperature-Vaccuum Environment

105 Jordan Road
roy, NY 12180
Fabrication of advanced Composites includes many processess, some are automated,
others are entirely manual.  Robotic Winding Systems (ROWS) was invented by the Principal
Investor in an attempt to create an automated technique of laying up pre-impresgnated
material around a form with complex shape.  Conventional winding equipment requires
the mandrel to rotate while the material is dragged along the axis of symmetry. 
By maintaining a stationary mandrel, filament placement, as compared to dragging
filament, is a more precise process.  During development of this technique for pre-impregnated
thermosetting materials, the Principal Investigator was exposed to an exciting process
at the General Electric R&D Center of using a plasma-spray material deposition technique
in a high temperature vacuum vessel.  The innovation described in this proposal is
a marriage of the two processes.  ROWS offers a method of reinforcing structural
components with SIC and Si3N4 ceramic filaments while using metal materials processed
with rapid solidification plasma deposition.  This program will establish the feasibility
of this process by evaluating the process parameters.  By building a mechanism and
demonstrating reinforced materials being wound directly inside this high temperature
vaccuum environment, the innovative process will result in a technique to fabricate
complex shapes in void-free space under precisely controlled conditions.

Abstract: