Thermal Analysis of In-Situ Curing for Thermoset, Hoop-Wound Structures Using Infrared Heating: Part II—Dependent Scattering Effect

Abstract

The volume fraction of the fibers present in commercial filament wound structures, formed from either epoxy-impregnated tapes (“prepreg”) or fiber strands pulled through an epoxy bath, approaches 60 percent. Such close-packed structures are near the region that may cause dependent scattering effects to be important; that is, the scattering characteristics of one fiber may be affected by the presence of nearby fibers. This dependent scattering may change the single-fiber extinction coefficient and phase function, and thus may change the radiative transfer in such materials. This effect is studied for unidirectional fibers dispersed in a matrix with nonunity refractive index, and with large size parameter (fiber diameter to wavelength ratio) typical of commercial fiber–matrix composites. Only the case of radiation incident normal to the cylinder axes is considered, as this maximizes the dependent effects. The dependent extinction efficiency is found by solving the dispersion relations for the complex effective propagation constant of the composites. An estimation of this dependent scattering effect on the infrared in-situ curing of thermoset-hoop-wound structures is also conducted. It is found that the wave interference effect is significant for S-glass/3501-6 composite, and neglect of this effect tends to overestimate the temperature and cure state within the materials during IR in-situ curing.