The Study of Different Area Weight of Fibers as Ablative Polymer-Based Composite for Solid Rocket Motor

Abstract

High performance composites are becoming progressively significant in the aerospace industry for severe temperature. Fiber Reinforced Plastics (FRP) is a general term for composite materials or parts that consist of a resin matrix containing reinforcing fiber such as glass or fiber with more strength or stiffness than the resin. FRP is mostly used to denote glass fiber-reinforced plastics. In this study, the test composites were obtained from a phenolic resin (PR) with different area weight of fibers for comparing the ablation resistance using the hot compression molding technique. The ablation performance of the composites was investigated under an oxy-acetylene torch. An oxyacetylene torch, providing temperatures above 2300 °C, was chosen as the heating source. Moreover, the physical properties of the composites were determined by using standard experimental methods. These experimental results indicated that the fabricated composites with greater area weight of fibers exhibited outstanding mechanical properties and excellent ablation resistance. The overall experimental characteristics of the PR/EWR600 composites meet most of the necessary high temperature application criteria.