Thermal, rheological, and dielectric analyses of the polymerization reaction of a liquid thermoplastic resin for infusion manufacturing of composite materials

The use of thermoplastics in advanced composites has increased in recent years due to their recyclability and rapid processing. It is thus important to establish an appropriate thermal cycle processing method in order to achieve parts with high mechanical performance. Elium® thermoplastic resins from Arkema constitute an innovation in the composites processing field for their ability to adapt to thermoset infusion processing methods already in use. Some studies on these new resins can already be found in literature. However, these studies address their mechanical behavior, and none so far focuses on polymerization reactions. Therefore, the present study uses thermal, rheological and dielectric measurements to characterize these acrylic resin polymerization reactions. The results show that both the initiator and temperature have an influence on these reactions, and that a multiple step isothermal cycle allows for the full polymerization of the resin. Also, an optimized thermal cycle for Elium®150 Arkema processing was suggested using dielectric analysis and validated by differential scanning calorimetry.