Carbon fiber reinforced composites for high temperature applications

LUCÍA ASARO; EXEQUIEL RODRIGUEZ; VERA ALVAREZ; LILIANA MANFREDI

Puerto Iguazú

Congreso; 13º Congreso Binacional de Metalurgia y Materiales (SAM-CONAMET 2013); 2013

There are many industrial applications in which a combination of high mechanical properties, low weight and high temperature resistance is required. That is the case of the aerospace industry, where components are subjected to severe service conditions. For example fire resistance and ablative composites are used in nozzle turbine construction and other components of rockets and airplane engines, exposed to very high temperatures. In this work carbon fiber/phenolic composites are developed and the fire and mechanical properties are studied. Since one of the most used processing techniques for obtaining high performance composites is autoclave (minimum void content and high fiber volume fractions are achieved), carbon/phenolic prepregs were developed. Phenolic resin was synthesized and cure kinetic was characterized in order to obtain the processing temperatures. Other specific prepregs properties such as tack degree, fiber content and stiffness were evaluated. Composites plaques were then obtained from prepregs and were tested in a cone calorimeter in order to obtain the fire resistance properties. The heat release rate, Total Heat Release (THR), time to ignition and smoke evolution characteristics (TSP, total smoke production; SPR, smoke production rate) were obtained according to ASTM E1354. Also, flexural and delamination resistance were studied in the final materials. The effect of nanoclay addition to the phenolic resin in all the measured properties was also studied.