In-mold Coating of Composites Manufactured by Resin Infusion between Double Flexible Tooling Process

Abstract

In-mold coating is desired by the composites industry since it eliminates the current paint process, which is not only laborious and time consuming, but expensive and presents safety issues. This work set out to investigate a means of implementing an in-mold coating scheme that would result in near class-A finish of composite component parts manufactured by the Resin Infusion between Double Flexible Tooling (RIDFT) process. RIDFT is a novel two-stage process, which incorporates resin infusion and wetting with vacuum forming. The flow front of the infused resin is two-dimensional and avoids flow complexities prevalent in the three-dimensional flow seen in other liquid composite molding techniques. It employs a one-sided mold, which provides obvious cost benefits when compared with resin transfer molding. This paper describes the preliminary results of in-mold coating assessment studies made using thermoformable paint films. A room temperature-cured vinyl ester resin is used and the paint film is an Avery Dennison Avloy film.