Processing of Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Composite (CFRP) Materials with Innovative Millimeter-Wave Technology for Aerospace Industries

摘要

The use of carbon fiber reinforced composite materials (CFRP) in aerospace industries is increasing due to their unique combination of characteristic features such as light weight, high specific firmness etc. For the time being, the main obstacle for widespread industrial applications are high manufacturing costs and one cause for them are the high curing temperatures between 100 and 200°C. Heating the CFRP materials to these temperatures in a conventional furnace is an energy consuming and therefore costly procedure. This paper presents a heating procedure by the means of millimeter-waves. The advantages of this new method are presented along with theoretical considerations and numerical simulations of the heating process. The first experimental results in the form of millimeter-wave cured CFRP slabs are demonstrated.