Optimizing Polymer Infusion Process for Thin Ply Textile Composites with Novel Matrix System
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School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
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Institute for Sports Research, Nanyang Technological University, 50, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Yong Sheng
Materials 2017, 10(3), 293; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma10030293
Received: 9 January 2017
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Revised: 3 March 2017
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Accepted: 13 March 2017
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Published: 15 March 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Textile Composites)
For mass production of structural composites, use of different textile patterns, custom preforming, room temperature cure high performance polymers and simplistic manufacturing approaches are desired. Woven fabrics are widely used for infusion processes owing to their high permeability but their localised mechanical performance is affected due to inherent associated crimps. The current investigation deals with manufacturing low-weight textile carbon non-crimp fabrics (NCFs) composites with a room temperature cure epoxy and a novel liquid Methyl methacrylate (MMA) thermoplastic matrix, Elium®. Vacuum assisted resin infusion (VARI) process is chosen as a cost effective manufacturing technique. Process parameters optimisation is required for thin NCFs due to intrinsic resistance it offers to the polymer flow. Cycles of repetitive manufacturing studies were carried out to optimise the NCF-thermoset (TS) and NCF with novel reactive thermoplastic (TP) resin. It was noticed that the controlled and optimised usage of flow mesh, vacuum level and flow speed during the resin infusion plays a significant part in deciding the final quality of the fabricated composites. The material selections, the challenges met during the manufacturing and the methods to overcome these are deliberated in this paper. An optimal three stage vacuum technique developed to manufacture the TP and TS composites with high fibre volume and lower void content is established and presented.
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Keywords:
NCFs; VARI; manufacturing; Elium®; thermoset; thermoplastic; optimisation
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MDPI and ACS Style
Bhudolia, S.K.; Perrotey, P.; Joshi, S.C. Optimizing Polymer Infusion Process for Thin Ply Textile Composites with Novel Matrix System. Materials 2017, 10, 293. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma10030293
AMA Style
Bhudolia SK, Perrotey P, Joshi SC. Optimizing Polymer Infusion Process for Thin Ply Textile Composites with Novel Matrix System. Materials. 2017; 10(3):293. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma10030293
Chicago/Turabian StyleBhudolia, Somen K., Pavel Perrotey, and Sunil C. Joshi. 2017. "Optimizing Polymer Infusion Process for Thin Ply Textile Composites with Novel Matrix System" Materials 10, no. 3: 293. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma10030293
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