A Fiber Optic Ultrasound Sensor for Monitoring the Cure of Epoxy
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Begun in 1973, the Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation (QNDE) is the premier international NDE meeting designed to provide an interface between research and early engineering through the presentation of current ideas and results focused on facilitating a rapid transfer to engineering development.
This site provides free, public access to papers presented at the annual QNDE conference between 1983 and 1999, and abstracts for papers presented at the conference since 2001.
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Abstract
Epoxy is a common matrix material in fibrous composites and is frequently used with: kevlar, glass, carbon, and boron fibers. Composite materials with an epoxy matrix are processed in an autoclave which applies temperature and pressure to the part during cure. Temperature and pressure facilitate the crosslinking of epoxide groups which react with amine groups present in the epoxy resin. Current methods of hardening fiber/epoxy composites utilize predetermined values of temperature and pressure in the cure cycle. These values are specified by the manufacturer and do not account for batch to batch variations in the epoxy resin which affect the cure. Possible variations in the epoxy resin include: chemical composition, water content, resin fiber content, temperature history, and humidity [1].