The Woodruff School

SUMMARY

The aerospace industry has an issue of what to do with waste, unused carbon fiber unidirectional prepreg tapes. One idea is to repurpose unused prepreg tapes for the manufacture of sheet-molding compound (SMC). The resulting material should be stronger due to their carbon fibers and high strength epoxy resin, as opposed to traditional SMC which has lower strength glass fibers and epoxy resin. The cure state, termed prestaging, of the epoxy resin in the prepreg tapes significantly changes the processing characteristics of SMC equipment. This thesis experimentally studied the effects of processing parameters and aging of the prepregs on the ability of the prepreg tapes to be made into SMC plates.

SUBJECT:	M.S. Thesis Presentation

BY:	Conner Chadwick

TIME:	Wednesday, June 19, 2019, 1:00 p.m.

PLACE:	MARC Building, 431

TITLE:	Processing of Post-Industrial Unidirectional Prepreg Tapes Using SMC Equipment

COMMITTEE:	Dr. Jonathan Colton, Chair (ME) Dr. Kyriaki Kalaitzidou (ME) Dr. Tequila Harris (ME)

SUMMARY The aerospace industry has an issue of what to do with waste, unused carbon fiber unidirectional prepreg tapes. One idea is to repurpose unused prepreg tapes for the manufacture of sheet-molding compound (SMC). The resulting material should be stronger due to their carbon fibers and high strength epoxy resin, as opposed to traditional SMC which has lower strength glass fibers and epoxy resin. The cure state, termed prestaging, of the epoxy resin in the prepreg tapes significantly changes the processing characteristics of SMC equipment. This thesis experimentally studied the effects of processing parameters and aging of the prepregs on the ability of the prepreg tapes to be made into SMC plates.