VARTM PROCESSING AND CHARACTERIZATION OFCOMPOSITE LAMINATES FROM EPOXY RESINS DISPERSEDWITH ALUMINA PARTICLES

摘要

Effective conventional manufacturing techniques are required to integrate the nanomaterialrnconfigurations into material systems at a larger component and structural level to obtain thernenhanced benefits offered by the material configurations at the nano length scale. A low costrnmanufacturing process based on VARTM is demonstrated for the effective processing of fiberrncomposite laminates using modified epoxy resin systems dispersed with nano and sub-micronrnalumina oxide particles. Ultrasonic mixing was employed to uniformly disperse the particles intornan epoxy resin system. The flow characteristics for the infusion of the modified resin systemrnwere not significantly different than the neat resin system and allowed the use of traditionalrnVARTM processes successfully. The details of the resin modification are discussed in this paperrnand composite laminates with S2 glass and modified resin is fabricated. The tensile response ofrnthe fabricated composite laminates with the neat and modified resin system with three differentrnloading of alumina oxide particles by weight are presented and discussed in this paper.