Die and post-die temperature and cure in graphite/epoxy composites

✍ Scribed by M. Valliappan; J.A. Roux; J.G. Vaughan; E.S. Arafat

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 859 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1359-8368
• DOI: 10.1016/1359-8368(95)00001-1

✦ Synopsis

A numerical model has been developed to analyze the die and post-die temperature and degree of cure profiles in pultruded composites. The model utilizes a fixed control volume based finite difference approach (S. V. Patankar, Numerical Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow. McGraw-Hill, NY, 1980). The method was used to solve the coupled non-linear three-dimensional steady-state energy and species equations for a cylindrical coordinate system. The species equation utilizes the one step Arrhenius reaction rate equation for an epoxy resin system. The kinetic parameters used for the epoxy resin to predict the temperature and degree of cure profiles were obtained from the differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) scans. The model is used to predict the temperature and degree of cure for the pultruded composite both inside the die and in the post-die sections. The post-die curing is important since the composite processing temperature is quite high and curing continues for some time even after the composite exits the die. The processing conditions examined in this study were die wall temperature settings, pull speed and fiber volume fraction.