Patent ID: 9610711
Date: 2017-04-04
CPC Classifications: B29C,B29K,B29L,Y10T

Claim:
1. A tooling system, comprising: a cure tool having a cure tool coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and configured for curing a composite article formed of two or more components having dissimilar component CTEs; a biasing element fixedly attached to the cure tool along a lengthwise direction of the cure tool in a manner preventing relative movement between the biasing element and the cure tool along the lengthwise direction, the biasing element having a biasing element CTE that is different than the cure tool CTE; and the biasing element being configured such that a combination of the cure tool CTE and the biasing element CTE causes a heat-up displacement of the cure tool and biasing element along a direction non-parallel to the lengthwise direction when the cure tool and biasing element are heated and the composite article is cured in a distorted shape on the heated cure tool such that when cooled, the cured composite article substantially assumes an as-designed shape due to the dissimilar component CTEs of the composite article.