Duration: 18 months
Many space and ground activities require assembly and repairs work, currently done with tapes. With regards to performances and cost-efficiency of these existing solutions, several deficiencies are pointed out: lead-time between manufacturing and use generates a loss of performances, stock management creates costs and wastes, and the low products’ offer in the market does not provide easy-to-use solutions. Many actors, specialized in the construction of satellites, are looking for a novel solution to improve significantly the portfolio of tapes. The major issue is the shelf-life of the adhesive: its performances decrease over time due to physicochemical ageing of the formulation.
Today, existing solutions (release silicon liner) can limit this phenomenon but not avoid it. To achieve this, Creathes will develop a new and innovative tape concept that enables post-activation of its performances. Allowing pre-positionning without any contamination of the surface, the post-activable tape-to-adherent concept has to be triggered by external action (mechanical action, temperature, electric field, sonication...) to obtain the expected adhesion properties.
The originality of the concept is based on the different applications that can be approached with the same technology:
- Several adhesive compositions applied on tape: polyurethane, acrylics, epoxy
- Several use cases: spatial and lunar station, pressurized elements, multi layers, launchers reuse, impacts repairs…
The main objective is to improve the eco-durability of adhesive tapes by programming on-demand the adhesion, enabling practical advantages such as a better shelf-life management by delaying tape expiration, facilitation of industrial uses by helping both operators and users and improvement of stocks management. Today, there is no equivalent solution among the existing commercial products and this concept is a disruptive solution to these needs.
