Carbon Fiber Infusion

Carbon fiber can be found in the main structures of aircraft and spacecraft parts, racing car bodies, golf club shafts, bicycle frames, automobile springs and sailboat masts among many other uses. With its extremely high strength-to-weight ratio and rigid yet brittle properties, carbon fiber offers many applications.

Vacuum Infusion (VI) is an economical and straightforward approach to laminating composite materials. The method relies on differential pressure to drive resin through dry reinforcement materials stacked under vacuum under differential pressure, typically polyester, vinyl-ester or epoxy with low viscosity formulation; core materials may include solid, foam or honeycomb panels (for sandwich construction). A system may include disposable or reusable vacuum bags and sealant tapes as well as buckets, catch pots clamps and resin feed lines.

Typically, woven carbon-fiber preforms are less suitable for VIP infusion than unidirectional prepregs due to their characteristic "crimp", in which fiber tows cross over each other preventing compaction and interfering with resin flow. Unidirectional prepregs can be made more infusion-friendly by interleaving off-axis plies or adding an appropriate additive with flow enhancing capabilities.





Temperature of resin is also key in the success of any VIP process. Warm resin has lower viscosity and flows much better than cold resins - particularly thermosets with an extremely fast gel time - making warm environments such as molds, dry stacks, and infusion bags the ideal environment for VIP production. timber machining