Title: Effect of Fiber Bed Architecture on Single Resin Droplet Spread for Prepreg Manufacturing

Authors: Patricio Martinez, Bo Jin, and Steve Nutt

DOI: 10.33599/nasampe/c.19.0770

Abstract: Previous studies have shown how discontinuous resin formats can increase the robustness of Vacuum Bag Only (VBO) prepregs. Current formats of this discontinuous resin format, dubbed USCPreg, all rely on a discontinuous film being applied on a fiber bed using only pressure. However, efforts are currently being undertaken to apply the discontinuous resin to the fiber bed directly, without a separate filming step. These methods should allow broader and more diverse characteristics of the prepreg, and allow a reduction in bulk factor, customization of the resin distribution, and potentially enable the production of prepreg “on demand.

To understand how applying discontinuous resin to a dry fiber bed at temperatures suitable for resin deposition may affect the final distribution, small-scale experiments were conducted. A fluid with controlled viscosity, matching the viscosity of epoxy resin during hotmelt processing, was used to minimize variability. The experiments consisted of a sessile droplet of facsimile fluid being deposited on the surface of a single ply of reinforcement. The spread of the fluid was then recorded, using a goniometer as well as a standard camera. Post-processing of these recordings was performed to obtain the spreading of the fluid in three directions: in the plane directions and the out-of-plane direction. The fluid was constant, a 30Pa.s rheological standard, but the reinforcement was varied to determine how the fluid interacted with different reinforcements. Macro-scale changes, such as fabric weave and fabric areal weight, and micro-scale parameters, such as tow width and fiber size, were varied to observe their effects on fluid distribution.

The experiments yielded maximum in-plane spread distance, time for the resin to fully impregnate into the fibers, and aspect ratio of spreading, particularly for non-symmetric weaves. The results can be used to guide how the resin is deposited on different reinforcements, in order to achieve a resin distribution that will consistently yield high-quality parts. In addition, it is possible these observations can be applied to resin flow in standard continuous film prepreg, such as predicting the final degree of impregnation.

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Conference: CAMX 2019

Publication Date: 2019/09/23

SKU: TP19-0770

Pages: 14

Price: $28.00