Abstract
Microwave rapid curing processing has great potential for improving composite manufacturing such as reduction of curing time, energy requirements and operational costs. In this study, pre-waiting time and curing time effects on epoxy based polymer composites with and without fillers were investigated during a microwave curing process. Silica sand was used as filler material. After prefabrication of polymer samples with and without fillers, the samples were left waiting for pre-curing for 0, 30, 60 and 90 min. In addition, the power of microwave curing was altered to be either 100W, 300W, 450W, 600W or 800W. Other polymer samples were cured at the laboratory for 7 days for comparison. Tensile strength, energy to break, hardness, water absorption and microstructure investigations were performed on all samples. Results show that subjecting polymer materials to microwave treatment instead of keeping them at room temperature for 7 days yielded similar or higher tensile strength, hardness and impact toughness values in a shorter time.
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