F
fly scared!
When Rutan started building "plastic" aircrafts, composite were available only in raw form (fabrics) and in a limited variety of materials; I think he had to actually design (or trademark) his own in some cases.
Nowdays there's a full industry producing a zillion shapes in a wide range of fibers and matrixes. They are cheap, high quality, strict-tolerance products available as pultruded, BI, FRP, CF et c.
But, as much as I know, in homebuilding the Verb is still "laminate from scratch".
Composites are often associated with complex shapes and carefully optimized fiber orientations, and lamination is a must in these context.
However in some cases I wonder if pre-fab profiles could be used.
For example could an angle profile be used in joining two (wood or composite) members? Or a prefab plate used as a gusset?
You could not co-cure them, but that applies to manual lamination also.
You also could not overlap layers, but you could that take that in account in the design.
Is bonding an issue? Some of the profiles are avalaible in epoxy, so they should be compatible with the usual adhesives.
Nowdays there's a full industry producing a zillion shapes in a wide range of fibers and matrixes. They are cheap, high quality, strict-tolerance products available as pultruded, BI, FRP, CF et c.
But, as much as I know, in homebuilding the Verb is still "laminate from scratch".
Composites are often associated with complex shapes and carefully optimized fiber orientations, and lamination is a must in these context.
However in some cases I wonder if pre-fab profiles could be used.
For example could an angle profile be used in joining two (wood or composite) members? Or a prefab plate used as a gusset?
You could not co-cure them, but that applies to manual lamination also.
You also could not overlap layers, but you could that take that in account in the design.
Is bonding an issue? Some of the profiles are avalaible in epoxy, so they should be compatible with the usual adhesives.
