Carbon Fiber Reinforced Phthalonitrile Resin Fabrication

The increasing use of polymer composites in primary and secondary components for aerospace and marine applications, and the demonstrated high performance of the phthalonitrile polymer resins provide a strong rationale for developing phthalonitrile resins as advanced materials to meet numerous Naval needs for lightweight, high-performance for aircraft, missiles, and marine vessels. This program optimizes processing conditions for the fabrication of carbon-fiber-reinforced phthalonitrile polymer composites that ultimately can be manufacturable. Phthalonitrile polymer composites offer improved thermo-oxidative stability, light weight, corrosion resistance, and potentially low cost. They have latent potential in the commercial sector for infrastructure rehabilitation, both nationally and internationally. The processing parameters for phthalonitrile polymer resins will be evaluated to achieve optimization of conditions for prepregging, sizing and fabrication. Mechanical, thermal, and solvent testing will be performed to support the optimization test plan. The Phase I results will transition into Phase II, during which part selection and design will be performed to evaluate thermomechanical performance of the carbon-fiber-reinforced phthalonitrile polymer resin. Tooling fabrication will also be performed. Phase II culminates in the fabrication of prototype parts. It is anticipated that Phase III will provide detailed engineering and optimization of parameters of detailed parts.