Volume 9, Issue 5, 2000

Ultraviolet Curing of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polyester Composites

Qiang Yuan1, Ming-Bao Yang2 and Yiu-Wing. Mai1

1Centre for Advanced Materials Technology (CAMT), Department of Mechanical & Mechatronic Engineering J07, The University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia

2Department of Plastics Engineering, Sichuan Union University, Sichuan 610065, China

(Received 6/00; accepted 9/00)

Abstract

Light curing of fibre composites was studied to explore its usefulness as a cost-effective production technique without unacceptable sacrifices of mechanical properties. Knitted continuous glass fibre reinforced polyester composites were cured by ultraviolet light and vacuum bag resin infusion (VBRI). A maximum thickness of 13 mm could be achieved with this technique. The compressive strength was shown to be independent of laminate thickness; but both the flexural strength and modulus were reduced with increasing thickness of laminate. The impact damage was also studied using drop-weight impact tests. For the same impact energy imposed on the laminates, the delamination areas decreased with laminate thickness.

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