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A method to determine resin flow during curing of composite laminates
Author(s) -
Poursartip Anoush,
Riahi Golnar,
Frederick Laurie,
Lin Xie
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
polymer composites
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.577
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1548-0569
pISSN - 0272-8397
DOI - 10.1002/pc.750130109
Subject(s) - materials science , epoxy , composite material , curing (chemistry) , scanning electron microscope , composite number , mixing (physics) , synthetic resin , physics , quantum mechanics
An experimental method is presented to determine the amount of resin flow within a composite laminate during cure. The method is analogous to the use of radioactive tracers in other applications. Heavier elements such as chlorine and bromine, which may be naturally present in small amounts in epoxy resins are used to follow resin flow and mixing. The presence and the quantity of these “tags” is determined using wavelength dispersive X‐ray analysis in a scanning electron microscope. With the resins in this study, it is shown that it is possible to measure volume fractions of resin with accuracies ranging from ±0.5 to ±3 volume %. By using brominated resin in only one layer of a laminate, the degree of flow and mixing can be followed accurately. The results suggest that there is considerable resin mixing as well as flow.