Mechanical Property of Glass Fabric/Phenolic FRP with Injection Molding

Abstract

Phenolic resin has originally advantages of heat proof, fire resistance and less smoke during burning. The FRP with phenolic resin having these advantages is one of suitable materials in structures of vessels and railway carriages. However, in the case of the resole type of phenolic resin, the water owing to condensation reaction and to fabrication method remains in the matrix and this water evaporates and becomes voids in curing process. As a result, fine matrix can not obtain. In this paper, a method of fabricating new phenolic FRP composed of Novolak type of phenolic resin as a matrix and glass fabrics as a reinforcement is shown. In order to prevent the movement of glass fibers in the fabrics during resin injection, a resole coating to the fabrics is executed before installing in the die. Furthermore, mechanical properties of the phenolic FRP are compared with those of the conventional FRP with unsaturated polyester resin. As a result, the phenolic FRP shows the high performance and it has a possibility to be employed as the structural members in the vessels and carriages.