Competitive Adsorption Of Phenolic/Ethanol Onto Silica Fiber Effected By Ultrasound In RTM Process

As an advanced technology used to fabricate high performance fiber reinforced polymer based composites, resin transfer molding (RTM) process has been extensively applied in aircraft, aerospace and communication industries for its outstanding advantages, including relatively short cycle times with good surface quality, the ability to manufacture large complex structures and low investment costs for equipment and tooling. The competitive adsorption of phenolics components onto silica fiber is the result of hydrogen-bonding interactions occuring among reinforcement, solvent and polymer. However, impregnation in a RTM process is complicated due to the presence of dual-scale structure unit in the preform and multi-components in the resin matrix. The performance of a part produced by RTM process is influenced by both interactions between macroflow and microflow and the competitive adsorption of resin components onto fiber.Ultrasonic treatment is effective in making use to produce high performance composites through RTM process. Competitive Adsorption of Phenolic/Ethanol onto Silica Fiber effected by Ultrasound in RTM process was investigated in this study. The results showed that a dynamic nonequilibrium adsorption occurred in the RTM process and the competitive adsorption of the components in the phenolics solution affects the ILSS uniformity of a RTM product. Not only the ILSS values but also ILSS uniformity of a RTM product are influenced by ultrasonic treatment. Ultrasonic treatment as a way to be used in fabricating silica/phenolics composites to control the competitive adsorption between ethanol/phenolics on silica faber in RTM process is determined.Phenolic resin is a Two-component System composed by phenolic and ethanol. Ultrasound technology was introduced into RTM process to reveal the competitive adsorption of phenolic/ethanol onto silica Fiber effected by ultrasound. The changes of viscosity and surface tension of the resin-silica fiber system after ultrasonic treatment was mainly studied and then the wettability in RTM before and after Ultrasonic treatment was characterized. The ultrasound technology of improving the competitive adsorption between the phenolic and ethanol onto fiber was used to increase the mechanical property in this paper.