Patent ID: 8457937

Claim:
A method of optimizing an autoclave volume utilization, said method comprises: determining process parameters of an autoclave; modeling an autoclave configuration to determine airflow patterns in the autoclave, temperature variation throughout the autoclave, and a distribution of turbulent intensity in the autoclave; modifying the autoclave configuration with hardware changes to the autoclave to alter the airflow patterns in the autoclave, wherein modifying the autoclave configuration comprises modifying the autoclave configuration by adding a diffusion screen at an air inlet, the diffusion screen comprising one of a rectangular screen grid and a polygonal grid, wherein the diffusion screen grid has a perimeter to depth ratio of about 1.5 to 1 to about 2:1; modeling the modified autoclave configuration to produce a model of airflow patterns in the autoclave, modified temperature throughout the autoclave, and the modified distribution of turbulent intensity in the autoclave; modeling the modified autoclave configuration with parts to be cured in the modified autoclave configuration to determine an arrangement of parts that maximizes the number of parts in the autoclave that meet predetermined cured properties of the parts; and validating the model of airflow patterns using a numerical design of experiment (DOE) technique.