Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Aluminum mold for prepreg

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic31492.aspx

By quinn - 1/3/2019 4:51:55 PM

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
By cdgatti - 1/7/2022 8:49:22 PM

Excuse me again, but it would be good to see how this turned out and to know how your bladder worked. Finally what pressure did you use? did you have pores? Thanks a lot.