Development of multifunctional carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFRCs) - Manufacturing process

Abstract

This work describes a successful attempt toward the development of CFRCs based on nanofilled epoxy resins. The epoxy matrix was prepared by mixing a tetrafunctional epoxy precursor with a reactive diluent which allows to reduce the viscosity of the initial epoxy precursor and facilitate the nanofiller dispersion step. As nanofiller, multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were embedded in the epoxy matrix with the aim of improving the electrical properties of the resin used to manufacture CFRCs. Panels were manufactured by Resin Film Infusion (RFI) using a non-usual technique to infuse a nano-filled resin into a carbon fiber dry preform

Electrical Current Map and Bulk Conductivity of Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Nanocomposites

“…CFRCs were manufactured by a non-usual resin film infusion (RFI) process, described in previous papers [20,39]. A laminate configuration (0/90) n was used for the purpose.…”

“…Aeronautical epoxy resins and their hardener agents containing phosphorus have been synthesized and used to prepare epoxy formulations and CFRCs [1,3,37,38]. Recently, CFRCs have been manufactured adopting a modified resin film infusion (RFI) process (named “bulk infusion”) [20,39,40]. In particular, the difference in the electrical performance of carbon fiber-reinforced composites (CFRCs) made with two different resin film infusion (RFI) manufacturing techniques has been analyzed.…”

Correlation between electrical conductivity and manufacturing processes of nanofilled carbon fiber reinforced composites

“…This particular epoxy formulation has proven to be very effective for improving nanofiller dispersion due to a decrease in the viscosity [19e22] and, in addition, it has been found to reduce the moisture content which is a very critical characteristic for aeronautic materials [19,23]. Furthermore, in order to minimize the filtration effects [24,25], the traditional liquid infusion process has been modified as described in the sequel.…”

Multifunctional Performance of a Nano-Modified Fiber Reinforced Composite Aeronautical Panel

“…The non-traditional liquid infusion technique for the preparation of the carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) panels has already been used by Guadagno et al [49,50] to obtain CFRP panels impregnated using resin with 0.5 wt% CNTs and turned out to be successful in reducing filtration problems and the formation of big CNTs agglomerates. The authors demonstrated that with this unconventional technique, compared to the traditional resin infusion process, significant improvements of the electrical conductivity were achieved, equal respectively to about 72% for the in-plane and 120% for the out-plane.…”