Development of a High-Temperature Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding Testbed for Aerospace Grade Composites

摘要

Composite materials are lightweight and strong, providing a winning combination that propels composites to new areas of respect in the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers are attempting to find more applications where composites can be used. For instance, composite materials are being looked at for use as replacements for conventional materials in high- temperature applications. Traditionally, hand lay-up prepreg/autoclave techniques have been used to fabricate polymeric composites for applications that require high-temperature resistance. Yet, high manufacturing costs have limited their usage. In recent years, vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) has proven to be an affordable process for manufacturing large composite structures, when compared to conventional RTM and hand lay-up prepreg/autoclave techniques. Manufacturing high-quality, large composite parts for high temperature applications using VARTM technique will significantly reduce costs due to low cost tooling, flexible part integration and larger part dimension.