Curing multidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites with indirect microwave heating

• Published in: International journal of advanced manufacturing technology Vol. 97; no. 1-4; pp. 1137 - 1147
• Main Authors: Li, Yingguang, Cheng, Libing, Zhou, Jing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Springer London 01.07.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Autoclaving; CAE) and Design; Carbon fiber reinforced plastics; Carbon fiber reinforcement; Carbon-epoxy composites; Composite materials; Computer-Aided Engineering (CAD; Curing; Dielectric properties; Differential scanning calorimetry; Energy consumption; Engineering; Fiber composites; Fiber reinforced polymers; Heating; Industrial and Production Engineering; Industrial applications; Infrared analysis; Mechanical Engineering; Mechanical properties; Media Management; Microwave absorption; Microwave heating; Original Article; Polymer matrix composites; Polymers; Transmission lines; Mechanical properties; Polymer matrix composites; Indirect microwave heating; Cure; Carbon fiber
• ISSN: 0268-3768; 1433-3015
• DOI: 10.1007/s00170-018-1974-1

Microwave curing technologies have many advantages in manufacturing fiber reinforced polymer composite materials used in aerospace products, compared with traditional autoclave curing technologies. However, multidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites can hardly be penetrated and heated by microwave directly, which has become a major obstacle in industrial application worldwide. In this paper, an indirect microwave curing method was proposed to solve this problem. The microwave absorption performance of the indirect microwave heating medium was systematically optimized by evaluating its dielectric properties and reflection loss according to the transmission line theory. On this basis, the microwave susceptive mold was carefully designed and manufactured. Subsequently, the multidirectional carbon fiber/epoxy composite was successfully cured with indirect microwave heating, which was demonstrated by the observation of the curing process with infrared thermal imager and differential scanning calorimetry analysis of the final products. Compared with the traditional thermal curing method, the curing cycle and energy consumption were reduced by 42.1% and 75.9% respectively. Results of further characterization experiments indicated that the mechanical properties of indirect microwave cured specimens were slightly higher than those of the thermally cured counterparts.