Environmental Conditioning of Polymer Composites for Aerospace and Non-Aerospace Applications

摘要

Environmental conditioning of polymer composites involves subjecting these material to different conditions like Temperature, Humidity, Altitude, Rain, Fungus, Dust, Salt etc to asses their performance demanded by an application. A conditioning process that simulates the real aging (natural weathering) requires months or even years, which is experimentally unacceptable. Therefore accelerated aging methods have been developed that takes several days or a few weeks. During exposure to various conditions like Thermal Shock, Humidity/Temperature or the combined effect of Altitude, Temperature and Humidity (CATH), the material properties will be affected. This is due to the effect of absorbed moisture in those conditions. This paper brings out the details of qualification tests carried out on prototype Radomes (4Nos) of military Aircraft and representative specimens after painting with an antistatic anti rain erosion paint as per the RCMA approved QTP under the CRI inspection. Some information on the unique Environmental Test Facility available at FRP Division, NAL are also presented. Environmental tests on variety of components (both structural and electronics type of applications) for end user community ranging from inhouse, inter division (ALD, STTD and ACD), premier Defense Establishment (ADRDE, SAC and ADA), public sector units (HAL and BEL) to private industries (Flow tech, SLN Technologies Pvt. Ltd., FLIC Microwave Pvt. Ltd., Spectrum Info Tech Pvt. Ltd., and Data Pattern (India) Pvt. Ltd.).ud