US Patent Issued to The Boeing on Feb. 3 for "Bladder vent plugs for composite-manufacturing bladders and systems and methods for assembling stiffened composite structures" (South Carolina Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,539,647, issued on Feb. 3, was assigned to The Boeing Co. (Arlington, Va.).

"Bladder vent plugs for composite-manufacturing bladders and systems and methods for assembling stiffened composite structures" was invented by Byron J. Autry (Charleston, S.C.), James R. Kendall (Mt. Pleasant, S.C.) and Santiago M. Mejia (Charleston, S.C.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems (100) for assembling stiffened composite structures comprise a layup mandrel (102) and a network (104) of fluid lines (116) configured to be selectively and fluidically coupled to stringer bladders (118) positioned relative to the layup mandrel (102). Bladder vent plugs (30...