Phase separation and rheological behavior of a new biphenyl poly(aryl-ether-ketone)-bismaleimide composite resin

Abstract

Ex-situ toughening technology is a good solution to improve the toughness of intrinsically brittle thermosetting resin matrix fiber composites. In order to better combine the ex-situ toughening technology with resin transfer molding (RTM) process to prepare high performance bismaleimide (BMI) resin matrix composites, in this paper, based on a new thermoplastic biphenyl polyether ketone (PAEK-B) resin, the phase separation behavior of the PAEK-B in BMI resin and carbon fiber composites, and the rheological properties of PAEK-B/BMI composite resin were studied. The results show that the phase separation behavior of PAEK-B occurs in the injection window temperature of BMI resin for a certain time, and the phase separation structure is maintained in the carbon fiber (CF)/PAEK-B/BMI composites prepared by RTM process. The solution of PAEK-B in the BMI resin is affected by the injection temperature of BMI resin. The initial viscosity of the BMI resin decreases with the increase of injection temperature, but the inflection point time of the PAEK-B/BMI composite resin decreases; The PAEK-B/BMI composite resin accords with the Winter-Chambon criterion. The tanδ of the composite resin has no dependence on the frequency, and the gel activation energy of the composite resin increases with the increase of PAEK-B content.