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- A Brief History of Dream - |
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Dream originally started testing with room temperature
epoxies back in January of 2003. It was quickly realized that
these easy to use and somewhat affordable epoxies had limitations
due to their low Tg (glass transition).
A worst case scenario was considered. A customer using or allowing
the black or dark-colored product to sit in Sunlight. It would
more than likely pass the Tg of room temperature epoxies, which
can be as low as 120F. As stated elsewhere on this web site,
even moderate ambient temperatures of 70F cause dark-surfaced
materials to go above 160F. This obviously goes well past room
temperature resin's Tg and is the reason aircraft kits are never
painted dark colors. Almost all kit planes are built using affordable
room temperature resins (usually vinyl-ester or polyester resins,
like those used in fiberglass domes) and therefore painted white
to reduce the risk of delamination. The majority of small planes
are flown during day light hours. Many are stored out in the
Sun as well. So they would not be able to withstand high temperatures,
caused by the use of dark paint colors. |
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Once room temperature
resins were determined to be inadequate, plans began for the
lease of a larger space and the susequent fitting out of a dedicated
composite shop. The shop is centered around elevated temperature
resins, carbon fiber and sandwich core technology. The biggest
requirement for the shop would be a large
oven. Dream's largest oven is 10kw and has roughly 430 cubic
feet of interior space. The interior is 144" wide, ~75"
deep and ~68" tall. The oven is processor controlled through
a closed loop, temperature sensor arrangement that uses forced
horizontal air flow that can keep the oven at +/-1F. These dimensions
where chosen for current and future projects. These include the
handling of: long lengths of truss tubes, cooking of complete
OTA structures (up to 1.5m in size), enclosure subcomponents
(domes, arched roll-offs and clamshell segments), etc.. The oven
is also large enough to thermoform full size sheets of sandwich
core materials, like 4'x8' honeycomb or foam. |
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- 66"x66" small work table - |
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The transition to the new space allowed for large,
rolling work tables that can themselves be placed into the oven.
As well as a dry composite goods gantry. This gantry helps keep
materials clean and easily accesible. Another item new to the
original shop transitions was a larger vacuum pump. Dream now
has three vacuum pumps. The two newest pumps are four and eight
times more powerful than the initial vacuum pump. The two newest
pumps can pull full vacuum (29.7" Hg at sea level). |
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VIP (Vacuum Infused
Process) was yet another new item to the shop transition.
This took the form of both methodology and hardware. Infusion
can be done many, many ways but Dream tested a UV-cured vacuum
infusion process. |
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Dream will continue to devote a great deal of effort
toward Research and Development. The goal for Dream's R&D
efforts is to find and then fine tune methods that meet it's
own goals as well as client's needs. Emphasis on low resin content
products is one of the hallmarks of Dream. Pushing carbon fiber
and other advanced composites into areas that have, to date,
been underutilized is the second hallmark of Dream. Dream now
specializes in ultra lightweight, low CTE and high stiffness
opto-mechanical structures and systems. We also produce structures
for other industries, like subcomponents structures for UAV's,
automotive components, etc.. |
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To learn more about advanced
composites, click here. |
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