I was wondering how prepreg is typically cured. I contacted the manufacturer of some donated prepreg our school received but her answer confuses me. It’s as follows
I believe that the typical cure cycle for this is: The temperature is raised in 3° increments until reaching 250° then holding for 2 to 3 hours.
Hope this helps.
Does this mean put the prepreg in a room temp oven then heat it up 3 degrees at a time till I get to 250? And if so how fast so I raise it to the required temp?
What he probably means is you do the layup, Apply pressure, then place it in the oven @room temp, and heat it up at a rate of 3 degrees per minute till you hit 250 F then let it sit there for 2-3 hours. a similar cool down cycle will probably also be good.
Hope that helps.
There is no typical cure cycle as each prepreg system is different. However there are a few that are very close eg: AGC MTM57 and Newport 301.
Ken got it right ramp at 3deg per minute to 250deg then hold for at least 2hours. As for a cool down generality you only need to cool to 176deg at 3deg/min before you can shut down the cycle.
Our standard cycle is 1C/min to 80C for 2hr, 1C/min to 120C for 1.5hr, 1C/min to 80C then shut down and dump pressure. The dwell at 80 lets the resin flow and is like a hot debulk.
So the ramp rate is Degrees per minute. That helps immensely. Thank you!
Don’t forget the pressure.
Add pressure before heat up (or, with a low soak like a hot debulk), and keep pressure on until after it cools down to specified temp.