Microwave Heated Resin Injector for Advanced Composite Production

摘要

A novel microwave (MW) injector at 2.45 GHz for resin infiltration has been developed at the Institute for Pulsed Power and Microwave Technology (IHM), Research Center Karlsruhe (FZK), Germany. Resin injection is an essential step in the production of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP)for aerospace applications. A compact, low-cost and automated MW injector provides an efficient and safe energy transfer from the MW source to the resin and supports an appropriate electromagnetic field structure for homogeneous infiltration. The system provides temperature monitoring and an automatized MW power switching, which ensures a fast response of the MW system to rapid changes in the temperature for high flow rates of the resin. In low power measurements with a vector network analyzer, the geometry of the injector cavity has been adjusted to provide an efficient system. The MW injector has been tested for specific resin systems infiltrations.