BMI and benzoxazine battle for future OOA aerocomposites
Offering weight, cost and process advantages, these “hot zone” resins are moving down the thermometer and into out-of-autoclave structural applications and autoclavable tooling now dominated by epoxies.
#a350#a380#adhesives
This 16-ply, 6K carbon fiber fabric, OOA-cured tool was made from Cytec Aerospace Materials’ (Tempe, Ariz.) new HTM520 BMI tooling prepreg. As the image demonstrates, the finished tool presents a good surface finish and, Cytec reports, the through-thickness quality necessary for the application. Source: Cytec
BMI products, listed by manufacturer.
Cytec Aerospace Materials’ Chris Ridgard presented a version of this slide at SAMPE Tech 2012 (Charleston, S.C.) showing the targeted notched property improvement for an OOA BMI still under development for structural applications. Source: Cytec
Henkel Aerospace (Bay Point, Calif.) has formulated a range of prepregs, infusion resins, tooling systems and adhesives aimed at cutting the total cost of composite structures from supply through manufacture and finishing. Source: Henkel Corp.
Benzoxazine products fall between epoxy and BMI in both perfor-mance and cost, and are being targeted toward epoxy’s shortfall in hot/wet performance, with reported cost and processing advantages due to elimination of frozen storage. Source: Henkel Corp.
Airtech International’s (Huntington Beach, Calif.) Beta Prepreg autoclave-cure benzoxazine tooling system offers a 218°C/424°F service temperature, low resin shrinkage for improved dimensional stability, reduced springback, and room-temperature storage. Source: Henkel Corp.
Another look at Airtech's Beta Prepreg autoclave-curable benzoxazine tooling. Source: Henkel Corp.
A difficult task even in the autoclave, this 48-ply laminate was successfully processed out of the autoclave, using BZ prepreg from Henkel Aerospace (Bay Point, Calif.) and a double-vacuum-bag debulk (DVD) process pioneered by Boeing for composite structural repair. Source: Henkel Corp.