Abstract

The deployment of composites for lightweight solutions in the automotive market is still emerging due to the production cost of these components and the limited production capacity of current manufacturing technologies.

The development of more reactive formulations for processes that allow to increase production rates and reduce process times to a few minutes are arousing great interest, such as the HP-RTM (high pressure RTM) and the HP-CRTM (RTM compression).

In the case of RTM resins, ultra-fast (2-5min) and low viscosity curing formulations are sought to optimize the curing and injection cycles to the maximum. The technology based on polyurethane resins (PUR) offers against other alternatives the advantage of having great tenacity and resistance to fatigue which makes it especially attractive for elements subject to impacts or cyclic loads such as suspension elements.

This work, based on simulations, has determined an optimal value of the PUR viscosity for RTM. In addition, a preliminary analysis of the curing kinetics of a commercial PUR resin has been carried out. The results indicate that the resin evaluated is not viable for the process due to its high reactivity at the beginning of curing, so that work will continue on the search for more latent PUR solutions for RTM.