DIY Curing Oven help


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janardian
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Hey everyone, Our college student club participates in the SAMPE Beam competition every year (http://www.nasampe.org/page/bridgecontest).
We've been using donated (and usually expired) CF/GF prepreg to make 24" long I beams for the competition. This year however we don't have access to an industrial oven/autoclave, and we are (desperately) thinking of making our own.
We have a fairly decent budget (not enough to buy an industrial oven ourselves tho). However we don't have a lot of hands on experience in oven making. Are there any good resources/DIY guides on that, especially one that caters to beginners? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

For reference the material we have has a cure temp of 250-300F. Since we'd cure our beams with tooling material (usually aluminum bars), we'd probably need inner dimensions to be at least 14" x 26" x 10". Power bills are not an issue since we use university resources anyway. An idea that was floated around was to simply modify and extend a regular kitchen oven and add heat guns for even heat distribution. Thoughts? Ideas? Thank you!
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janardian
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Steve Broad - 4/8/2018 7:27:12 PM
Are you still thinking of building an autoclave? If so, I strongly suggest that you don't!  For example, a 1m x 1m x 1m oven would experience, at only 1 atmosphere of pressure (around 14 .7psi and what can be achieved using a vacuum bag), 134,000lb of force! Basically a home made bomb !!!

No just an oven! I messed up in some of the wording - and yeah I agree that would be very dangerous to DIY with no experience!
We use vacuum bags and the oven for curing. Since we're a student club with very little resources, the prepreg we get is usually donated by a company and that dictates the cure cycle and temperature; autoclave would be ideal but yeah impractical, so we are currently using a makeshift oven. We're trying to find benefactors who might donate out of autoclave prepreg instead, since that seems a lot more reasonable!

Steve Broad
Steve Broad
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janardian - 4/8/2018 9:33:38 PM
Steve Broad - 4/8/2018 7:27:12 PM
Are you still thinking of building an autoclave? If so, I strongly suggest that you don't!  For example, a 1m x 1m x 1m oven would experience, at only 1 atmosphere of pressure (around 14 .7psi and what can be achieved using a vacuum bag), 134,000lb of force! Basically a home made bomb !!!

No just an oven! I messed up in some of the wording - and yeah I agree that would be very dangerous to DIY with no experience!
We use vacuum bags and the oven for curing. Since we're a student club with very little resources, the prepreg we get is usually donated by a company and that dictates the cure cycle and temperature; autoclave would be ideal but yeah impractical, so we are currently using a makeshift oven. We're trying to find benefactors who might donate out of autoclave prepreg instead, since that seems a lot more reasonable!


Phew! :-)

You are using autoclave prepreg in an oven? What are the results like? Any photos? Where are you?
janardian
j
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Steve Broad - 4/8/2018 9:46:45 PM
janardian - 4/8/2018 9:33:38 PM
Steve Broad - 4/8/2018 7:27:12 PM
Are you still thinking of building an autoclave? If so, I strongly suggest that you don't!  For example, a 1m x 1m x 1m oven would experience, at only 1 atmosphere of pressure (around 14 .7psi and what can be achieved using a vacuum bag), 134,000lb of force! Basically a home made bomb !!!

No just an oven! I messed up in some of the wording - and yeah I agree that would be very dangerous to DIY with no experience!
We use vacuum bags and the oven for curing. Since we're a student club with very little resources, the prepreg we get is usually donated by a company and that dictates the cure cycle and temperature; autoclave would be ideal but yeah impractical, so we are currently using a makeshift oven. We're trying to find benefactors who might donate out of autoclave prepreg instead, since that seems a lot more reasonable!


Phew! :-)

You are using autoclave prepreg in an oven? What are the results like? Any photos? Where are you?

We're from UCLA and we're competing this year at the SAMPE student bridge contest! Although this is our third year participating, this is the first time we are trying to be fully self-sufficient! I will post pictures and updates soon!

Steve Broad
Steve Broad
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janardian - 4/11/2018 3:25:02 AM
Steve Broad - 4/8/2018 9:46:45 PM
janardian - 4/8/2018 9:33:38 PM
Steve Broad - 4/8/2018 7:27:12 PM
Are you still thinking of building an autoclave? If so, I strongly suggest that you don't!  For example, a 1m x 1m x 1m oven would experience, at only 1 atmosphere of pressure (around 14 .7psi and what can be achieved using a vacuum bag), 134,000lb of force! Basically a home made bomb !!!

No just an oven! I messed up in some of the wording - and yeah I agree that would be very dangerous to DIY with no experience!
We use vacuum bags and the oven for curing. Since we're a student club with very little resources, the prepreg we get is usually donated by a company and that dictates the cure cycle and temperature; autoclave would be ideal but yeah impractical, so we are currently using a makeshift oven. We're trying to find benefactors who might donate out of autoclave prepreg instead, since that seems a lot more reasonable!


Phew! :-)

You are using autoclave prepreg in an oven? What are the results like? Any photos? Where are you?

We're from UCLA and we're competing this year at the SAMPE student bridge contest! Although this is our third year participating, this is the first time we are trying to be fully self-sufficient! I will post pictures and updates soon!

OK, look forward to seeing them.

With regard to cheap prepreg - I have just received 11m2 of 270gsm prepreg for the cost of shipping only! The company had some out of date material that they couldn't sell. However, the storage life is similar to food storage Best Before times. The stuff remains usable for a lot longer than the 12 months stated. Maybe worth contacting local suppliers to see if they have any out of date OOA material they would be prepared to donate.

GO

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janardian - 7 Years Ago
Hanaldo - 7 Years Ago
janardian - 7 Years Ago
Hanaldo - 7 Years Ago
             Awesome, Thanks!!!
janardian - 7 Years Ago
Michael Guilford - 7 Years Ago
janardian - 7 Years Ago
Steve Broad - 7 Years Ago
                     That is a really cool and interesting way to do it!
janardian - 7 Years Ago
KostasBiz - 7 Years Ago
janardian - 7 Years Ago
Hanaldo - 7 Years Ago
             I see, thanks!!
janardian - 7 Years Ago
Steve Broad - 7 Years Ago
janardian - 7 Years Ago
Steve Broad - 7 Years Ago
janardian - 7 Years Ago
Steve Broad - 7 Years Ago
Barnsley-Bill - 7 Years Ago

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