Characterisation of Curing of Vinyl Ester Resin in an Industrial Pultrusion Process: Influence of Die Temperature.

Pultrusion is a high-volume manufacturing process for Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites. It requires careful tuning and optimisation of process parameters to obtain the maximum production rate. The present work focuses on the correlation between the set die temperatures of 80 °C, 100 °C, 120 °C, and 140 °C and the resin cure state at constant pull speeds.

In Situ Thermoset Cure Sensing: A Review of Correlation Methods.

Thermoset polymer composites have increased in use across multiple industries, with recent applications consisting of high-complexity and large-scale parts. As applications expand, the emphasis on accurate process-monitoring techniques has increased, with a variety of in situ cure-monitoring sensors being investigated by various research teams. To date, a wide range of data analysis techniques have been used to correlate data collected from thermocouple, dielectric, ultrasonic, and fibre-optic sensors to information on the material cure state.

Review on Local Buckling of Hollow Box FRP Profiles in Civil Structural Applications.

Hollow box pultruded fibre-reinforced polymers (PFRP) profiles are increasingly used as structural elements in many structural applications due to their cost-effective manufacturing process, excellent mechanical properties-to-weight ratios, and superior corrosion resistance. Despite the extensive usage of PFRP profiles, there is still a lack of knowledge in the design for manufacturing against local buckling on the structural level. In this review, the local buckling of open-section (I, C, Z, L, T shapes) and closed-section (box) FRP structural shapes was systematically compared.

Bending and Shear Behaviour of Waste Rubber Concrete-Filled FRP Tubes with External Flanges.

An innovative beam concept made from hollow FRP tube with external flanges and filled with crumbed rubber concrete was investigated with respect to bending and shear. The performance of the rubberised-concrete-filled specimens was then compared with hollow and normal-concrete-filled tubes. A comparison between flanged and non-flanged hollow and concrete-filled tubes was also implemented.

Behaviour of Polymer Filled Composites for Novel Polymer Railway Sleepers.

A novel concept of polymer railway sleeper is proposed in this study that has the potential to meet static performance requirements within the cost of hardwood timber. The existing challenges of composite sleepers, such as low performance or high cost, can be overcome using this innovative concept. Such a proclamation is proven through limit state design criteria and a series of experimentations.

Novel Bending Test Method for Polymer Railway Sleeper Materials.

Alternative sleeper technologies have been developed to address the significant need for the replacement of deteriorating timber railway sleepers. The review of the literature indicates that the railway sleepers might fail while in service, despite passing the evaluation tests of the current composite sleeper standards which indicated that these tests do not represent in situ sleeper on ballast. In this research, a new five-point bending test is developed to evaluate the flexural behaviour of timber replacement sleeper technologies supported by ballast.

Tensile Fatigue Behavior of Polyester and Vinyl Ester Based GFRP Laminates-A Comparative Evaluation.

Fatigue loading is critical to fibre reinforced polymer composites due to their anisotropic and heterogenous nature. This study investigated the tensile fatigue behaviour of polyester and vinyl ester based GFRP laminates to understand the critical aspects of failure mode and fatigue life under cyclic loading. GFRP laminates with two different resin systems (polyester and vinyl ester), two different stress ratios (0.