Laboratory Production of Discontinuous-Aligned Fiber Composite Plates Using an Autoclave-Style Press Cure

The objectives of this article are twofold: to describe a procedure that we have developed for producing laboratory quantities of discontinuous-aligned fiber composite materials and to discuss the autoclave-style press cure as an inexpensive laboratory-scale alternative to the industrial autoclave cure. We have produced discontinuous-aligned fiber composite plates from continuous fiber prepreg tapes of graphite/epoxy, Kevlar/epoxy, and boron/epoxy using a vacuum-bagged mold in a small laboratory press. Procedures and apparatus are described, and the quality of autoclave-cured samples is compared with that of autoclave-style press cured samples.