SURFACE-ANALYSIS OF PHENOLIC COMPOSITES OBTAINED BY RTM PROCESS

Phenolic composites coupled with RTM process are being used more and m ore on the automation market. One of the major problems encountered is the surface aspect of the fabric produced due to volatile and air ent rapment on the surface in contact with the mould. To improve the proce ss is necessary to primarily develop adequate techniques dedicated to surface analysis. Different techniques have been developed: Image anal ysis and roughness determinations. Image analysis techniques allow to determine surface aspect parameters such as the area fraction or to es tablish granulometric repartition in sizes of the open pores. This too l seems to be adapted to the surface aspect analysis. Finally, for the process we have noticed an interest using surface veils to improve th e surface aspect of the fabrics in order to eliminate the gelcoat phas e.