Characterization of high-pressure resin transfer molding process variants for manufacturing high-performance composites.

The current developments in the Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) process for the automotive industry are strongly driven by the need for automotive light-weight design and high volume manufacturing capacity. In order to adapt the RTM process for industrial scale manufacturing of the automotive components it is essential to implement newly developed fast curing resin systems. If such resin systems shall be implemented in the RTM process, then it raises the necessity to achieve shorter resin injection time in this process. For serving this purpose, modern equipment technology such as precise compression press and high pressure RTM equipment were used for all the scientific and technological investigations in this particular thesis. The scope of investigations included studying different high pressure RTM (HP RTM) process variants to understand their effects on the manufacturing of high performance composites. The important parameters such as mold gap created during the resin injection step, laminate layup, resin viscosity, resin injection rates and mold geometry were investigated through several process studies. Through the achieved results a basis has been formed for the industrialization of the HP RTM process chain.