Smart cure cycle for reducing the thermal residual stress of a co-cured E-glass/carbon/epoxy composite structure for a vanadium redox flow battery

In this work, smart cure cycle was developed to reduce the thermal residual stress of the co-cured E-glass/carbon/epoxy structure for VRFB. The deformations of structure fabricated using smart cure cycle were investigated with respect to the degree of cure and post-cure process using the viscoelastic properties of composite materials during post-cure process. In addition, the thermal residual stress and actual bonding temperature were calculated. Using the experimental results of degree of cure and actual bonding temperature, a finite element analysis was performed to verify the stress of the co-cured FF-BP structure as a function of the cure cycles.