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Abstract:Modeling of composite curing process is required prior to composite production as this would help in establishing correct production parameters thereby eliminating costly trial and error runs. Determining curing profile temperatures from experiment is a huge challenge which in itself is like re-inventing the wheel of trial and error, when mathematical models of physical, chemical and kinetic properties of the constituent materials could be used in modeling the cure situation to some degree of trust. This work has modeled two types of polymer based composite materials (Aluminum filled polyester and carbon-black filled polyester) representing polymer-metal and polymer-organic composites in order to predict the possible trends during conventional autoclave heating with regards to effect of heating rate on degree of cure of the composites. The numerical models were constructed by taking into account the heat transferred by conduction through the resin/filler mixture, as well as kinetic heat generated by cure reaction. The numerical solution of the mathematical models presented were discretized using forward finite differences of the Runge Kuta Method and finally solved using MATLAB® C programming language. It was observed that Aluminum filled polyester composite responded faster to heat input-induced curing and as such was able to cure faster than polyester -carbon black composite which had much slower cure -heat input response. This implies that in the production process of polymer-organic composites, faster heating rate was necessary to input heat into the process as there was no heat of reaction released during the cure process whereas, polymer-metal composites release heat of reaction contributing to the quick transfer of heat into the metal components causing the metal components to behave as points of adhesion to the polymer matrix thereby necessitating a slower heating rate.

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