Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Mold curing

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic39988.aspx

By 4age - 3/21/2021 5:40:55 PM

Hi

I am currently in the process of making car parts from carbon fibre. As some of them must be more temperature resistant I buildt a curing oven for the infusion made carbon parts. Everything is controlled by a PID controller.

Right now I am making the molds out of glassfibre.  The question is should I also cure the glassfibre molds and should I cure them together with the part I am making the mold of? Like should I leave the steel door of the car on the mold while curing it? To prevent warping?




By Hanaldo - 3/24/2021 7:47:57 PM

Rosta Spicl - 3/24/2021 4:46:41 PM
Definitely better to post-cure together with plug if the plug is high temperature stable. Sheetmetal parts are ok. Be carefull if the car doors are already painted, the temperature limit of standard car paints are somewhere close to 90°C...

No, most automotive paints will be quite happy going as high as 150/160° C. The issue with them is even high solids 2k paints have a lot of solvents in them, and as the temperature goes up those solvents start to move around and the paint softens again slightly. Sometimes this causes issues, sometimes it doesn't. The bigger issue is if the panel being moulded has any body filler in it, then this will suffer and shrink badly above 60°, which will ruin the mould.

Personally, I wouldn't take a mould higher than 65° with the plug still in it, its a bit risky and fairly unnecessary. You are more likely to have big issues with CTE differences and pre-release and plugs suffering from the heat, etc. I will generally do an initial post cure at 55/60° for 8 hours with the plug still in the mould, and then demould and do a free-standing cure up to the final temperature with a very slow ramp rate (I do 0.1° per minute if I have the time, 0.5° if I'm comfortable or need to push it). The initial 60° post cure will give most resins a Tg of around 80, and then you can push the Tg higher without really coming too close to it in the process.