US Patent Issued to RTX on Feb. 10 for "Sheathed metallic needles for producing z-channels in fibrous preforms" (Connecticut Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,545,628, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to RTX Corp. (Farmington, Conn.).

"Sheathed metallic needles for producing z-channels in fibrous preforms" was invented by Brendan Lenz (Wethersfield, Conn.) and Molly Kole (Hartford, Conn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A needle array suitable for perforating a fibrous preform includes a backplate, a plurality of needles removably attached to and extending away from the backplate, and a collar disposed around each of the plurality of needles. Each of the plurality of needles includes a metallic body, and a polymer sheath covering the metallic body."

The patent was filed on March 17, 2023, under ...