Aluminum mold for prepreg


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quinn
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I'm about to start machining my mold but I have a few concerns. The composite part is an 800m long tapered tube. 46mm diameter at one end, 30mm at other end. The closed mold is 75mm square by 800mm long. This means the mold walls will be as thin as 15mm at one end and as thick as 22mm at other end. One concern is the time it takes for this big chunk of aluminum to heat up, the other concern is uneven heating, thinner walled end heating up first. How should I approach this with my ramp cycles? Just go slower in general? Hold temps longer? I'm really not sure what to expect for how long it's gonna take for it to heat up. If the varying wall thickness is gonna be a big problem, I can do some machining on the outside to even it out, but would rather not if it isn't needed. First few parts will be done with vacuum bag so the laminate will be exposed to the heated air but later on I'll be trying silicone expanding plug so I'm sure that will change things as far as heating. Any advice on how to approach this? Thanks
quinn
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Meant 800mm long, not 800m
Lester Populaire
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quinn - 1/3/2019 7:33:41 PM
Meant 800mm long, not 800m

absolutely no issue with the different wall thickness. Aluminum has a heat transfer that is really good which means that you will get a uniform temperature. I would just make the soak times longer to give it time to get to temperature. No need to get slower, if anything you might go slightly faster as the big mass will slow things down.

quinn
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Lester Populaire - 1/3/2019 8:21:52 PM
quinn - 1/3/2019 7:33:41 PM
Meant 800mm long, not 800m

absolutely no issue with the different wall thickness. Aluminum has a heat transfer that is really good which means that you will get a uniform temperature. I would just make the soak times longer to give it time to get to temperature. No need to get slower, if anything you might go slightly faster as the big mass will slow things down.

Great thanks! I did pick up a few extra temp sensors.  maybe ill bore a couple holes in tbe thickest area of the mold to insert temp sensor and monitor

Lester Populaire
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quinn - 1/3/2019 8:31:19 PM
Lester Populaire - 1/3/2019 8:21:52 PM
quinn - 1/3/2019 7:33:41 PM
Meant 800mm long, not 800m

absolutely no issue with the different wall thickness. Aluminum has a heat transfer that is really good which means that you will get a uniform temperature. I would just make the soak times longer to give it time to get to temperature. No need to get slower, if anything you might go slightly faster as the big mass will slow things down.

Great thanks! I did pick up a few extra temp sensors.  maybe ill bore a couple holes in tbe thickest area of the mold to insert temp sensor and monitor

If you have the opportunity to do so this will give you some very valuable bits of information. just have a look at the time as well and make a graph over time to get a better feeling for the next time.

quinn
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First mold section. One concern I have is those radiuses in the corners at the close end, they are 4mm. First layer going down will be 200gsm +/-45 twill so I imagine that should bend a bit easier than 0/90. After that is uni running lengthwise. Am I gonna have issues getting the prepreg to stick down in those radiuses? First time using prepreg so not sure how well it wants to stick to polished aluminum with frekote. Is it gonna stay put?
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Edited 5 Years Ago by quinn
Hanaldo
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Depends on the pre-preg. But it should stay put well enough. 
Steve Broad
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A little bit of heat to make the prepreg tacky works for me on aluminium.
Matthieu Libeert
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Like above, when very cold the prepreg wont stick well, what you could do is preheat your mould at around 25-30°C that way your prepreg will find an easier way to stick, or use a heatgun. 
Once your first ply is well against the mould all the rest should stick pretty well to each other. Ambient working temperatures are ideal between 20-25°C for prepreg lay up (at least that's what I think BigGrin



Matthieu Libeert
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website:
www.mat2composites.com




quinn
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Hanaldo - 1/8/2019 1:40:39 AM
Depends on the pre-preg. But it should stay put well enough. 

Sounds good. After watching a few more videos, it looks like +/-45 is great for getting into corners so that should work to my advantage. 
Couple more questions before I order prepreg. I'm still a bit unclear on whether or not it's an advantage to use single sided prepreg for first layer. I see that easy composites sells a prepreg that is optimized for the surface layer and it's single sided. I'm in the US so can't order their stuff, but should I pick a single sided for my first layer, or is it gonna make much difference? The part will not be getting clear coat or paint so I want it to come out of the mold with good finish. If 2 sided is not much of a disadvantage for surface layer, I'd rather use it since I need it for other areas. My other question is the bagging technique. Eventually I want to try a silicone plug if I go into production, but for prototyping I'm just gonna vacuum bag it. I'll make a tube out of bagging material that is slightly larger than the inside of my part.  This will be fed through the middle once mold is closed, then I'll bag the whole mold and seal the outside of the ends of that inner tube to the outer bag. Before closing the mold I will apply release film to the laminate, leaving a strip of laminate exposed for the overlap, then close mold and push overlaps down. Question is, do I need a breather between the release film and the bagging material? In most videos I watch, they use breather, but in the tutorial on this forum they bag straight onto the release film, only using breather on outside of mold. It will be much easier for me if I can do it the same way and only wrap breather around the outside. Will this work well in my case?

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