Development of carbon fiber/phenolic resin prepregs modified with nanoclays

ASARO, LUCÍA; RIVERO, GUADALUPE; MANFREDI, LILIANA; ÁLVAREZ, VERA; RODRIGUEZ EXEQUIEL

JOURNAL OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

Lugar: London; Año: 2016 vol. 50 p. 1287 - 1300

0021-9983

This manuscript describes the process to develop high temperature resistant prepregs. For this, phenolic resin was obtained from phenol and formaldehyde, performing the reaction under basic conditions and with formaldehyde excess. Resin curing kinetics was studied by means of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements. Organo modified clay was added to the phenolic resin in order to evaluate their effect on the general performance of the material. Carbon fiber-phenolic resin and carbon fiber-clay modified phenolic resin prepregs were obtained by hand-layup and vacuum bagging. Prepregs were characterized in terms of fiber content, flexural stiffness and degree of tack. In both cases, intermediate fiber volume content, near to 50 %, was obtained. The addition of 5 wt.% of clay to the phenolic resin produced an increase on the prepregs stiffness and degree of tack, which implies that the incorporation of such particles was useful to enhance the prepregs properties, and will be able to used as starting materials to develop high temperature resistant composites.