Material State Management™

Manage the Cure Process at All Stages

There’s a lot riding on the quality of structural composites – safety, quality and accuracy. Further, cost control is critical to remaining competitive in composite production. To help you ensure composite materials are produced at the highest quality, Advanced Processing Technology™ (AvPro™) has developed process controls based on the progressive application of Material State Management™ (MSM™), which permits a single approach in the production and repair environments. 

By applying the MSM™ philosophy, AvPro™’s software and measurement tools enable an expansion of the acceptance window beyond the legacy box of time and temperature specifications. These legacy specifications are written to control to a time-temperature-pressure box, which means parts are accepted because they have a certain temperature history rather than reaching the required cure state. AvPro™’s MSM™-based technology not only provides a means of getting outside that box; it also enables reduced cost by direct, rather than indirect, measurement of the cure state which facilitates optimization of the product.

The use of state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, control sensors and systems software, provides insight to critical material properties, such as viscoelasticity, to decrease process anomalies and save production time. Due to its progressive nature, MSM™ is engaged in collaborative efforts between multiple companies. A great example of this is the development of the ATD Encapsulated Specimen Rheometer (ESR), a rheometer that combines the technologies of AvPro™ and Alpha Technologies. This innovative production analysis tool, complies with the new ASTM 7750-12 for cure characterization. The ATD ESR is designed specifically to test full composite prepregs throughout all stages of cure.

Goals of Material State Management™