Loughborough University
Browse

Tailored out-of-oven energy efficient manufacturing of high-performance composites with two-stage self-regulating heating via a double positive temperature coefficient effect

Download (4.75 MB)
journal contribution
posted on 2024-02-29, 14:59 authored by Xudan Yao, Yushen Wang, Thomas D. S. Thorn, Shanshan Huo, Dimitrios G. Papageorgiou, Yi LiuYi Liu, Emiliano Bilotti, Han Zhang

The needs for sustainable development and energy efficient manufacturing are crucial in the development of future composite materials. Out-of-oven (OoO) curing of fiber-reinforced composites based on smart conductive polymers reduces energy consumption and self-regulates the heating temperature with enhanced safety in manufacturing, presenting an excellent example of such energy efficient approaches. However, achieving the desired curing processes, especially for high-performance systems where two-stage curing is often required, remains a great challenge. In this study, a ternary system consisting of graphene nanoplatelets/HDPE/PVDF was developed, with a double positive temperature coefficient (PTC) effect achieved to fulfill stable self-regulating heating at two temperatures (120 and 150 °C). Systematic studies on both single and double PTC effects were performed, with morphological analysis to understand their pyroresistive behaviors. Compared to the oven curing process, up to 97% reduction in the energy consumption was achieved by the ternary system, while comparable thermal and mechanical properties were obtained in the carbon fiber/epoxy laminates. This work presents a new route to achieve OoO curing with two-stage self-regulating heating, which can be utilized in many high-performance composite applications.

Funding

ESTEEM: Energy efficient and Safe out-of-oven manufacTuring for compositE materials with intEgrated Multifunctionalities

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Find out more...

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Materials

Published in

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

Volume

15

Issue

48

Pages

56265 - 56274

Publisher

American Chemical Society

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by the American Chemical Society under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2023-11-02

Publication date

2023-11-21

Copyright date

2023

ISSN

1944-8244

eISSN

1944-8252

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Yi Liu. Deposit date: 28 February 2024

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC