MIT Researchers Develop Carbon Nanotube Method For Aerospace-Grade Composites Written 15 January 2020

Aviation International News reports that engineers at MIT “have developed a method to use carbon nanotubes to produce aerospace-grade composites without an autoclave,” according to a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces. MIT Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Brian Wardle said, “If you’re making a primary structure like a fuselage or wing, you need to build a pressure vessel, or autoclave, the size of a two- or three-story building, which itself requires time and money to pressurize. ... Now we can make primary structure materials without autoclave pressure, so we can get rid of all that infrastructure.” The team’s method involves wrapping “layers of material in an ultrathin film of carbon nanotubes that, when electrified, generated enough heat to cure and fuse them together” and uses “1 percent of the energy.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)