Browse Topic: Resins
This research demonstrates a facile method for fabricating an anti-icing coating through spray deposition on a metallic substrate. A dual-layer structure was designed to enhance icephobic properties: a primer layer incorporating fluorocarbon resin, butyl acetate, and rod-shaped micrometer-sized metal oxides to establish a secondary roughness morphology, followed by a topcoat composed of butyl acetate and nano-scaled superhydrophobic particles. Evaluation of the coating performance revealed a maximum water contact angle of 171.9°, indicating exceptional hydrophobicity. Furthermore, the coating exhibited notable abrasion resistance and anti-icing capabilities against overlaying ice.
This paper investigates the feasibility of using flax fiber-reinforced composites in combination with additively manufactured polymer cores for helicopter rotor blades. A new rotor blade with flax composite spar and skin laminates and a 3D-printed ASA Aero core was designed to be geometrically equivalent to an existing carbon fiber/foam reference blade of the MERIT rotor test rig and manufactured using identical tooling. Material characterization included compression testing of the printed core at ambient and elevated temperatures, single-lap shear adhesion testing with epoxy laminates, and hygroscopic conditioning of core and laminate specimens. Structural testing comprised static beam bending, experimental modal analysis with axial pre-loading to approximate centrifugal stiffening, and sustained-load creep and recovery testing of the flax blade. The results show that the 3D-printed core provides sufficient compressive stiffness at curing temperature and adhesion to epoxy laminates, enabling its use as an internal consolidation tool during blade manufacturing. Compared to the carbon reference blade, the flax/3D blade exhibits reduced flapwise and lead–lag bending stiffness, altered modal behavior, and pronounced viscoelastic effects, including creep, incomplete recovery, and strong hygroscopic swelling. Component-level hygroscopic tests reveal that moisture-induced mass and thickness changes can generate sufficient internal stresses to locally initiate structural damage. Overall, the study identifies key limitations and design considerations for applying flax fiber composites in primary rotor blade structures.
Is there a way to stick hard and soft materials together without any tape, glue, or epoxy? A new study published in ACS Central Science shows that applying a small voltage to certain objects forms chemical bonds that securely link the objects together. Reversing the direction of electron flow easily separates the two materials. This electroadhesion effect could help create biohybrid robots, improve biomedical implants, and enable new battery technologies.
To reduce its environmental impact and pollution, the shipping industry is investigating methods to construct more lightweight ships. One potential method is using adhesive bonding techniques to replace traditional welding and riveted joints on ships to fabricate lighter ships with smaller carbon footprints. However, adhesives age and deteriorate when exposed to moisture, high temperatures, and ultraviolet light. This makes it necessary to understand how they age in maritime environments to determine whether they can truly replace traditional welding techniques.
Master Bond EP40 is a two-part, room temperature curing epoxy for bonding, sealing, coating, and encapsulating. EP40 bonds well to a variety of substrates, including naval steel, the primary structural metal used in the shipbuilding industry. Master Bond Inc., Hackensack, NJ To reduce its environmental impact and pollution, the shipping industry is investigating methods to construct more lightweight ships. One potential method is using adhesive bonding techniques to replace traditional welding and riveted joints on ships to fabricate lighter ships with smaller carbon footprints. However, adhesives age and deteriorate when exposed to moisture, high temperatures, and ultraviolet light. This makes it necessary to understand how they age in maritime environments to determine whether they can truly replace traditional welding techniques. To this end, researchers at Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías Navales e Industriales (CITENI) and Centro de Investigación TIC (CITIC) developed a new method for studying adhesive aging on naval steel substrates. Master Bond EP40 was selected as the test adhesive for this method due to its strong performance and suitability for marine conditions. By using EP40, the team ensured that the observed adhesive bonding behavior would reflect a high-quality epoxy's potential in ship structures. The goal was to evaluate how EP40 bonds to naval steel and how the bulk epoxy material would behave in seawater to provide insights into the construction of lighter ships using this approach.
Stretch broken carbon fiber (SBCF) offers enhanced formability as compared to continuous carbon fiber (CCF). However, robust, quantitative evaluation of forming defects remains a challenge. This study introduces a unified formability index (UFI) that integrates multiple defect types, including texture anomalies, bridging, wrinkling, thickness variation, spring-back, and resin distribution variation (RDV), into a single weighted score. Each defect is ranked on a scale of 0-5 using normalized metrics with a tunable parameter, α, allowing users to balance defect magnitude and frequency as desired. The full scoring pipeline is demonstrated for texture defects using measured data, while normalized legacy scores from previous work are used for non-texture defects to enable complete formability index computation. Case studies on three laminates illustrate how variations in α affect both texture scoring and the overall formability index and demonstrate the geometry-agnostic nature of the updated ranking and UFI systems. This framework maintains compatibility with existing evaluations while offering improved resolution, consistency, and scalability for assessing laminate quality across complex geometries.
3D-printed microscopic particles, so small that to the naked eye they look like dust, have applications in drug and vaccine delivery, microelectronics, microfluidics, and abrasives for intricate manufacturing. However, the need for precise coordination between light delivery, stage movement, and resin properties makes scalable fabrication of such custom microscale particles challenging. Now, researchers at Stanford University have introduced a more efficient processing technique that can print up to 1 million highly detailed and customizable microscale particles a day.
Eight arguments for these resins, compounds and composites. Weight reduction in EV battery components is an important factor in optimizing battery energy density, which in turn is critical to extending vehicle range and boosting power and performance. Although traditional metals such as steel and aluminum are widely used in EV batteries, the ongoing push for higher energy density is opening new opportunities for thermoplastic resins, compounds, and composites. The main advantage of these materials vs. metals is their inherent lighter weight - particularly in the case of lower-density polymers. Thermoplastics can be 30-50 percent lighter than metals. They also increase design freedom, which permits further weight-out through part consolidation and thin walls.
Smaller than a coin, this optical device could enable rapid prototyping on the go. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Imagine a portable 3D printer you could hold in the palm of your hand. The tiny device could enable a user to rapidly create customized, low-cost objects on the go, like a fastener to repair a wobbly bicycle wheel or a component for a critical medical operation. Researchers from MIT and the University of Texas at Austin took a major step toward making this idea a reality by demonstrating the first chip-based 3D printer. Their proof-of-concept device consists of a single, millimeter-scale photonic chip that emits reconfigurable beams of light into a well of resin that cures into a solid shape when light strikes it.
Thermoplastic composites are serious competitor for classic epoxy composites. They have comparable properties to epoxy composites, but characterize much lower processing costs. There are several methods of manufacturing the components from thermoplastic composites. One of the most interesting method in terms of efficiency is thermoforming on a press. This technology allows to product of the aircraft parts such as: ribs, brackets, covers, stiffeners. Thermoplastic composites are resistant to most solvents such as grease, oil and aviation fuel. They are also non-flammable and heat-resistant. This all makes them suitable for use in aircraft as upholstery, casing or elements around the tank. PZL Mielec has been developing press thermoforming technologies since 2016 and is the owner of the several patents in this area.
Carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composite stiffened panels are increasingly being used for structural components in large transport rotorcraft. However, problems are arising with high levels of vibration and interior noise due to the increased stiffness-to-density ratio of composites. The current investigation explores the potential of reducing vibrations in carbon/epoxy stiffened panels with the integration of acoustic black holes (ABH), namely features that incorporate a power law thickness taper. The proposed approach involves designing a taper into the thickness of the blade stiffeners as well as the thin plate. Integration of ABHs into the fuselage structure has the potential to reduce broadband vibrations. Multiple parametric studies with either an ABH integrated into the blade stiffener or a grid of ABHs integrated into the plate were conducted, and the tradeoffs between vibration amplitudes, panel mass, and compressive buckling load were examined. Carbon/epoxy panels were fabricated using vacuum-bag-oven processing with out-of-autoclave prepreg and verified to be of good quality. The integrated velocity response, a proxy for the radiated noise from a panel, and compressive buckling were simulated using finite elements. Comparisons were made to experimentally measured data from modal testing and compression buckling testing. Experimental results indicated that when an ABH is integrated into the blade stiffener and 15 ABHs are integrated into the plate in a grid configuration, the panel mass was unchanged, the integrated velocity response decreased by 2.82 dB, and the buckling load increased by 2.9% compared to a baseline non-tapered design.
This work proposes an experimental and numerical activity aimed at developing methods to evaluate the strength and toughness of Kevlar/Epoxy composite fastened joints used in aeronautical structures and exposed to high energy impacts. Experiments were conducted using an Arcan rig that allowed applying various loading conditions, ranging from pull-through to bearing. A non-linear model of the material based on a bi-phasic decomposition and hybrid meshing technique was built and calibrated. The material model was used to develop a high-fidelity model of the junction to simulate the pull-through test with the Abaqus/Explicit finite element solver. The results of the analysis point out that the implemented progressive damage laws are capable of achieving an appreciable experimental-numerical correlation, both from the qualitative and the quantitative standpoint. Therefore, the combined experimental-numerical approach is promising for developing a validated numerical tool capable of predicting the overall response of different junctions with minimal experimental effort, so to provide data for simulating impact scenarios at the rotorcraft structural scale and designing critical joints.
Recycling of advanced composites made from carbon fibers in epoxy resins is required for two primary reasons. First, the energy necessary to produce carbon fibers is very high and therefore reusing these fibers could greatly reduce the lifecycle energy of components which use them. Second, if the material is allowed to break down in the environment, it will contribute to the growing presence of microplastics and other synthetic pollutants. Currently, recycling and safe methods of disposal typically do not aim for full circularity, but rather separate fibers for successive downcycling while combusting the matrix in a clean burning process. Breakdown of the matrix, without damaging the carbon fibers, can be achieved by pyrolysis, fluidized bed processes, or chemical solvolysis. The major challenge is to align fibers into unidirectional tows of real value in high-performance composites.
Automobile parts often require materials that offer high strength and durability. With the continuous push for environmentally friendly solutions, natural fibers such as jute have emerged as a potential alternative for synthetic fibers in automobile components. In this study, we aim to enhance the properties of jute fibers by coating them with different polymers and assessing their suitability for automotive applications. We treated jute fibers with various polymers—low-density polyethylene, polyester, and araldite epoxy. The performance of these treated fibers was compared using fiber tensile experimentation, differential calorimetry, and dynamic mechanical evaluation. Our findings reveal that the treated jute fibers exhibit a tensile strength of 598 MPa. However, when coated with polymers, there’s a variance in strength: polyethylene (263 MPa), polyester (191 MPa), and epoxy (281 MPa). Among these, epoxy-coated fibers displayed the least tensile strength, while polyethylene-coated jute fibers recorded the highest. A noteworthy observation is the lower dispersion value for the polyethylene-coated jute fiber, attributed to the penetration of polyethylene liquid into the jute fiber pores. In conclusion, modifying jute fibers using different polymers can enhance their mechanical properties, making them a viable option for automobile components.
Thermoplastic resins, composites, and copolymers can help the healthcare industry address multiple sustainability challenges. Specifically, thermoplastic materials can help manufacturers develop medical devices that:
Epoxy polymers are widely used in various industries, e.g., as coatings, adhesives, and for lightweight construction due to their unique properties such as high strength, chemical resistance, and adhesion to various surfaces. Therefore, one of the most prominent applications is their use as matrix material in fiber-reinforced composites, which are heavily employed in the aerospace sector. However, the disposal of epoxy polymers and composites thereof has become a significant concern due to their recalcitrant nature and the adverse environmental effects caused by traditional recycling methods.
Composites are especially important for the development and implementation of sustainable technologies such as wind power, energy-efficient aircrafts, and electric cars. Despite their advantages, their non-biodegradability raises challenges for the recycling of polymer and composites in particular. University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Epoxy polymers are widely used in various industries, e.g., as coatings, adhesives, and for lightweight construction due to their unique properties such as high strength, chemical resistance, and adhesion to various surfaces. Therefore, one of the most prominent applications is their use as matrix material in fiber-reinforced composites, which are heavily employed in the aerospace sector. However, the disposal of epoxy polymers and composites thereof has become a significant concern due to their recalcitrant nature and the adverse environmental effects caused by traditional recycling methods. In this context, the overall production of plastic waste is projected to double within the next 20 years, with only 18 percent currently being recycled, leading to the deposition of around 12,000 Mt of plastic waste in landfills and the environment by 2050 (see figure 1). Even though epoxy polymers only accounted for a rather small share of the global plastic production volume of around 7.1 percent in 2021, the demand for fiber-reinforced polymers is steadily increasing. This is closely linked to emerging sustainable technologies such as off and on-shore wind power plants or electric vehicles that rely on lightweight construction materials for increased efficiency. To cover the resource demand of the composite industry and to reduce the environmental impact of accumulated epoxy waste, there is an urgent need for the development of sustainable recycling methods.
To grow the application space of polymer additive manufacturing (AM), the industry must provide an offering with improved mechanical properties. Several entities are working towards introducing continuous fibers embedded into either a thermoplastic or thermoset resin system. This approach can enable significant improvement in mechanical properties and could be what is needed to open new and exciting applications within the aerospace industry. Introduction of Continuous Fiber Reinforced Polymer: A New Additive Manufacturing Path for Aerospace examines a couple of unsettled issues that are beginning to come to light regarding these materials and focuses on the ability to design and provide robust structural analysis for continuous fiber reinforced polymer AM—unsung aspects that can make or break this new technology as it finds its way into the aerospace market. Without solutions to them, adoption by the aerospace industry will be limited to point design applications, thus constraining the technology to being nothing more than a specialized tool. Click here to access The Mobility Frontier: Metals, Polymers, or Composites Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.
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