Comments

Copyright © 1998 Maney Publishing and the authors.

This is the author’s final version of an article that was originally published in the Journal of Plastics Rubber and Composites in 1998 by Maney Publishing. The journal is available at http://maney.co.uk/index.php/journals/prc/ and back issues of the journal can be purchased from the publishers stockists website at http://maney.co.uk/index.php/back_issues/ or direct link to the Periodicals Service Company website at http://www.periodicals.com/maney.html

Abstract

Microwave processing of materials has the potential to deliver several major advantages over conventional thermal processing. One of these is an decrease in the time necessary for manufacture since the microwave energy is absorbed throughout the body of the material rather than relying on thermal conduction and convection. Another potential advantage is that the power is directed to the sample, this together with the decrease in processing time leads to lower energy being consumed. One question which needs to be addressed in the case of polymer composites is whether microwave processed materials are of as good quality as the thermally processed ones. In this work the interfacial properties of model Kevlar fibre reinforced epoxy composites post-cured by both conventional and microwave heating have been examined. Raman spectroscopy was employed to measure the fibre strain distributions along embedded fibres and from this information the interfacial shear stress distribution was calculated. The results show that the interfacial shear strengths and critical lengths of the microwave post-cured composites are comparable to those for thermally post-cured ones. This is potentially of interest in the commercial manufacture of composites since the process could be considerably shortened by the use of microwave post-curing leading to lower cycle times and costs without any deterioration in the interfacial properties of the composites.

Disciplines

Applied Mechanics | Engineering | Mechanics of Materials | Organic Chemistry | Polymer and Organic Materials | Polymer Chemistry | Structural Materials

Recommended Citation

Day, Richard J. Yau, Siu Hua Charlotte. Hewson, Karl D. (1998) ‘Effect of microwave post-curing upon the micromechanics of model Kevlar/epoxy composites’. Plastics rubber and composites, Volume 27, issue 5 (43 p.) (32 ref.), pp. 213-219.