Rigidization of inflatable space structures via internal resistive heating requires carbon fiber reinforced material to consolidate and cure on-command. In terms of the spacecraft’s life, the rigidization process transforms a structurally weak “balloon” into a robust, stable design. Internal resistive heating provides an active approach for inducing permanent shapeholding and structural stiffen...

The increasing use of composite materials has led to a greater demand for efficient curing cycles to reduce costs and speed up production cycles in manufacturing. One method to achieve this goal is in-line cure monitoring to determine the exact curing time. This article proposes a novel method through which to monitor the curing process inside closed tools by employing ultrasonic spectroscopy. ...

Three C21-based reactive polyamides were synthesized from tung oil and different polyamines. The thermal and mechanical properties of cured products of the C21-based polyamides and diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) were investigated. It was found that the cured materials were superior to those cured by C36-based polyamides in tensile strength and flexural strength and had a better flexura...

We synthesized a series of epoxysiloxane oligomers with controllable viscosity and polarity and developed upon them a thermal-curable nanoimprint resist that was cross-linked in air at 110°C within 30 s if preexposed to UV light. The oligomers were designed and synthesized via hydrosilylation of 4-vinyl-cyclohexane-1,2-epoxide with poly(methylhydrosiloxane) with tunable viscosity, polarity, and...

An active approach for initiating rigidization in carbon-fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites unites electrical resistivity to mechanical stiffening. Temperature control is implemented in efforts to reduce the curing time of the composite and to increase control of the curing process. Specifically, proportional-integral (PI) feedback control of internal resistive (Joule) heating establish...

Quasi-elastic neutron scattering was used to monitor the temperature-dependant hydration of tricalcium silicate and Portland cement. Results show that for some samples the degree of hydration is in fact higher at lower curing temperatures. To investigate this effect further, we performed a series of experiments in which samples are initially hydrated at one temperature and then the diffusion pr...

We demonstrate a simple one-step method for synthesizing noble metal nanoparticle embedded free standing polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite films. The process involves preparing a homogenous mixture of metal salt (silver, gold and platinum), silicone elastomer and the curing agent (hardener) followed by curing. During the curing process, the hardener crosslinks the elastomer and simultaneous...

In this study bio-based bio-phenol-formaldehyde (BPF) resoles were prepared using hydrolytically depolymerized Kraft lignin (DKL) as bio-phenol to partially substitute phenol. The effects of phenol substitution ratio, weight-average molecular weight (Mw) of DKL and formaldehyde-to-phenol (F/P) ratio were also investigated to find the optimum curing temperature for BPF resoles. The results indic...

This research presents a case study of production monitoring on an aerospace composite component: the hinge arm of the droop nose mechanism on the Airbus A380 wing leading edge. A sensor network composed of Fibre Bragg Gratings, capacitive sensors for cure monitoring and thermocouples was embedded in its fibre reinforced lay-up and measurements were acquired throughout its Resin Transfer Mouldi...

Silicone resin has recently attracted great attention as a high-power Light Emitting Diode (LED) encapsulant material due to its good thermal stability and optical properties. In general, the abrupt curing reaction of the silicone resin for the LED encapsulant during the curing process induces reduction in the mechanical and optical properties of the LED product due to the generation of residua...