Just curious, if you can tell us without divulging trade secrets-
how hot and how long do you cook it?

I'm really enjoyin this thread- thanks for taking the time to post the pix.

[QUOTE=glassdave;2972187]Autoclaves work on positive pressure not vacuum. When combined with a vacuum bagged laminate the part is first layed up, completely bagged and vac'ed of any air voids then placed in the autoclave and kept under full vac pressure until the autoclave reaches its peak positive pressure or vented to the outside atmosphere. When pressure is applied the process kind of works in reverse of the original vac bagging. If that makes any sense :D

Also think of this. How would you heat it if it were a vacuum?

that a cool website on the 787 by the way. Its amazing the fuselage parts are built all around the world then brought together in WA. Thanks.

Dave,

A few years back we used autoclaves to laminate printed circuit boards used in all elecronics euipment.
we would use C stage core material(cured) with the copper circuits on it and bond them together using B stage pre-preg sheets.
We would lay them up in steel fixture plates to maintain registration of all the layers and then vacuum bag them and then put many of these fixtures iinto the autoclave and pull vacuum and then heat CO2 or nitrogen to about about 350F to make the pre-preg flow and cure. we also also post bake the boards in a std oven for final cure
This was just a simple version of what we did.

One of the advantage of the autoclave for us was that we could laminate different size fixtures in the same press load.
but the autoclaves never really caught on with the PC industry
Prior to Autoclaves and today we use a vacuum assisted Hyd press using heat and pressure to laminate the PC together.
Sorry running off at the fingers
Thank you
Jim

I've heard of some inert gasses being used in other industrial autoclave processes for the pressure side. Theres all kinda uses for these things.

how thick is the hull when done?,,and how thick are the sheets of cf?,,how many layers?

Dave

Yes, we used either CO2 or Nitrogen
which was a pain as we had to have large storage tanks, plus both CO2 and Nitrogen are super cold and then have to heat them using a electric heating element to 350F,, the heat rise was fairly slow

Thank you
jim

I saw that on 60 minutes a while ago...boeing actually wants to bring the manf. back to the states..to many issues with tolerances/qc etc. They figure the decreased costs of less problems will negate the costs of us manf. some things are just to sensetive to outsource.

More stringer install

Cockpit completion and roll bars for canopy

check out the carbon seats and the recessed rear seats. The aluminum is in there for harnesses.

Just curious on what materials you guys are usung for the stringers?

Thanks,
DPT