Manufacturing of unidirectional glass-fiber-reinforced composites via frontal polymerization: A numerical study

Abstract Frontal polymerization (FP) is explored as a faster and energy-efficient manufacturing method for dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) matrix, E-glass-fiber-reinforced composites through a series of numerical simulations based on a homogenized reaction-diffusion model. The simulations are carried out over a range of values of fiber volume fraction using (i) a transient, nonlinear, multi-physics finite element solver, and (ii) a semi-analytic steady-state solver. We observe that the front velocity and temperature decrease with an increase in the fiber volume fraction until a critical point is reached, beyond which FP is no longer observed as the front is quenched. To highlight the effect of the material properties of the reinforcing phase, the dependencies of the front velocity, width and maximum temperature on the fiber volume fraction obtained for glass/DCPD composites are compared to those associated with carbon/DCPD composites.

[1]  Philippe H. Geubelle,et al.  Frontal polymerization accelerated by continuous conductive elements , 2018, Journal of Applied Polymer Science.

[2]  Nancy R. Sottos,et al.  Rapid energy-efficient manufacturing of polymers and composites via frontal polymerization , 2018, Nature.

[3]  Jose Maria Kenny,et al.  Numerical modeling and experimental study of the frontal polymerization of the diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A/diethylenetriamine epoxy system , 2005 .

[4]  Michael R. Kessler,et al.  Cure kinetics of the ring‐opening metathesis polymerization of dicyclopentadiene , 2002 .

[5]  Tp Sathishkumar,et al.  Glass fiber-reinforced polymer composites – a review , 2014 .

[6]  V. Vitelli,et al.  Uniform shock waves in disordered granular matter. , 2012, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[7]  J. Pojman,et al.  Solvent-free synthesis of polyacrylamide by frontal polymerization , 2000 .

[8]  Alberto Mariani,et al.  Frontal Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization of Dicyclopentadiene , 2001 .

[9]  J. Pojman,et al.  Free-Radical Frontal Polymerization: Self-Propagating Thermal Reaction Waves , 1996 .

[10]  Derek Gaston,et al.  MOOSE: A parallel computational framework for coupled systems of nonlinear equations , 2009 .

[11]  A. Berlin,et al.  Advances and problems of frontal polymerization processes , 2011 .

[12]  Dichen Li,et al.  Curing Methods for Advanced Polymer Composites - A Review , 2013 .

[13]  Elyas Goli,et al.  Frontal Polymerization of Dicyclopentadiene: A Numerical Study. , 2018, The journal of physical chemistry. B.

[14]  V. Volpert,et al.  Mathematical Modeling of Free-Radical Polymerization Fronts , 1997 .

[15]  John A. Pojman,et al.  Numerical modeling of self-propagating polymerization fronts: The role of kinetics on front stability. , 1997, Chaos.

[16]  E. Turi,et al.  Thermal characterization of polymeric materials , 1981 .

[17]  J. Pojman,et al.  Frontal Polymerization in Solution , 1996 .