Optimising cure cycle of unsaturated polyester nanocomposites using directed grid search method

Abstract

In this research, a method is proposed for optimising cure cycle of neat unsaturated polyester (UP) resins, and UP resins containing Cloisite 20A (UP/20A), in thin parts. Using the proposed optimisation method, optimised cure cycles for both neat UP resin system and UP/20A were calculated. Results of dynamic mechanical analysis tests show that samples cured by the optimised cure cycles are slightly different from those samples cured using a long-term cure cycle in terms of structural relaxation. This confirms that the proposed optimisation method not only reduces the cure cycle duration efficiently but also preserves the quality of the samples.