Curing Methods for Advanced Polymer Composites - A Review

Abstract

Advanced polymer composites have obtained great application interest in a number of demanding aerospace, wind energy, automotive, infrastructure, and consumer applications. Great varieties of curing methods are investigated to develop low-cost and high-efficient fabrication of advanced polymer composites, which still remains as a great challenge and thorny issue. Especially, the autoclave curing process, which is widely used for curing of high performance advanced polymer composites, is labor- and capital-intensive, with costs increasing exponentially with part size and limiting increased use of advanced polymer composites. Researchers and industries have long desired to explore and develop low-cost and high-efficient curing methods for fabrication of advanced polymer composites and investigated different radiation and thermal curing alternatives. In this paper, current development status of the radiation curing (gamma ray, x-ray, ultraviolet, accelerated electron beams) and thermal curing (radiation heating (infrared, laser and microwave), convection and conduction heating (hot gas, flame, oven and hot shoe), induction heating, ultrasonic heating, resistance heating and thermal additives (magnetic particles, NIR absorbent particles) based heating methods applied for the curing of advanced polymer composites are reviewed. The curing mechanism and current application status of the different curing processes for fabrication of advanced polymer composites is discussed, and main advantages and disadvantages of these methods are comparatively analysed and evaluated according to the material, cost, feasibility and power criteria for successful curing application of advanced polymer composites.

Void‐Free Layered Polymeric Architectures via Capillary‐Action of Nanoporous Films

“…Moreover, the size and design of components are constrained by the capacity of autoclaves, and autoclave availability limits the production rate. As such, the interest in the development of alternative techniques has been increased (e.g., induction heating, laser heating, microwave heating, and specially formulated and designed prepregs that can be cured without a pressure vessel—the so‐called out‐of‐autoclave (OoA) prepregs) …”

Investigation of irradiation dose rate on curing characteristics of carbon fiber/polymer composites by low‐energy electron beam

“…With the wide applications of resin matrix composites in the aerospace, energy, and transportation industries, various out‐of‐autoclave curing processes such as X‐ray curing, γ‐ray curing, microwave curing, electron beam curing, and ultraviolet light curing have been put forward. Among them, E‐Beam curing technology has attracted significant attention in carbon fiber‐reinforced polymer composite (CFRPs) for its high curing efficiency, low energy consumption, and high controllability compared to other out‐of‐autoclave processes . For example, ultraviolet light curing is applicable in transparent composites but can hardly cure black composites such as CFRP owing to the poor penetration ability through the prepregs; γ‐rays can be very effective, but serious irradiation hazards are associated with irradiation.…”

“…Guasti and Rosi combined low‐energy E‐Beam curing process with wet winding technology and conducted preliminary experimental study . Researchers at Xi'an Jiaotong University further reduced the E‐Beam energy to 125 keV with an improved operability during in situ curing, and proposed the double‐sided irradiation method to obtain a controllable cross‐linking structure along the prepreg thickness direction …”

Influence of model parameter estimation methods and regression algorithms on curing kinetics and rheological modelling

“…The final property of the epoxy resin or the epoxy matrix composites is dictated by its cure process and final cure state. The dominant curing processes today for epoxy matrix composites are still based on thermal curing using a range of thermal heating processes . Because the epoxy resin reaction is exothermic and epoxy has very low thermal conductivity, curing processes for polymer composites needs to be accurately designed and controlled, especially, in the industrial application where thick composite laminates with thickness of up to hundreds of millimeters are required—typical in wind turbine blades.…”