NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA solicits interest from companiesinterested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market thefollowing technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basisand may include specific fields of use. THE TECHNOLOGY: As more countries commit to wind power, development of wind turbines is increasing. Afixture that NASA has used to produce large structural parts for unmanned aerial vehiclescan also benefit wind turbine blade manufacturing. NASAs new technology addresses somecost and manufacturability barriers with current composite wind turbine blade processing.The fixture includes flexible vacuum bagging to contain the raw material lay-up as it isroll-pressed into a gently contoured blade. The process is an alternative to hand toolingand autoclaving, and produces parts with quality close to those processed underhigh-temperature and high-pressure environments. It can use a variety of reinforcementfibers and is not dependent on matrix viscosity to achieve part wet-out, even on thicklaminations. The fixture and process are applicable to low-volume production but havepotential for adaptation to automated high rate production. NASA has obtained a patent onthe assembly, and it seeks an industry partner to commercialize the technology for windturbines.To express interest in this opportunity, please respond to Sean Sullivan, ResearchTriangle International (RTI), at: NASA Langley Research Center, Strategic RelationshipsOffice (SRSO), 17 West Taylor St., Mail Stop 218, Building 1212, Room 110 Hampton,Virginia, E-mail:
[email protected], or phone: 757-864-5055. Please indicate thedate and title of the FBO notice and include your company and contact information.RTI is responsible for aggregating and acknowledging all responses. These responses areprovided to members of NASA Langleys Innovative Partnerships Office within the SRO forthe purpose of promoting public awareness of our technology products, and conductingpreliminary market research to determine public interest in and potential for futurelicensing opportunities. If direct licensing interest results from this posting, SRO willfollow the formal licensing process of posting in the Federal Register as required. Nofollow-on procurement is expected to result from responses to this Notice.