Prepregs

What exactly is a Prepregs? Basically, a prepreg consists of a fibre reinforcement, i.e. carbon, glass, etc., in unidirectional (aligned) or fabric (woven or multiaxial) form, impregnated at a pre-determined level with a resin matrix. This stringent control of resin content and dispersion eliminates the risk of fibre content variation and the build up of resin rich areas maximising material performance. Problems such as these can plague processes such as wet lay-up and vacuum infusion, perhaps even detracting from final material performance and, while a number of material a enhancementsa have recently been developed to aid processing, these are often detrimental to the final component performance in terms of the fibre fraction achievable and component weight. An additional benefit prepregs offer is they remove the vagaries of resin chemistry; all formulation and mixing is, in effect, carried out under controlled conditions, with no further handling of potentially harmful chemicals. Consequently, health and safety issues are minimized. Similarly, resin type, content and dispersion within the reinforcement can be fine tuned to suit specific process requirements.Prepregs allow us to maximise, optimise and control the fibre volume fraction giving us a level of control over the final product not achievable with other composite process methods. Low temperature prepregs offer a a low riska route to reproducible high performance. New material formats are helping to help a de-mystifya