The prepreg hand lay-up process is a versatile, reliable, cost-effective, and high quality process for fabricating large or small components. This article discusses the technique characteristics and applications of the process. It describes the stages involved in the process of lay-up, namely, lay-up definition, ply-kit cutting, layup, debulking, and preparation for curing. The article concludes with a discussion on the component properties and design guidelines of the prepreg hand lay-up process.

This article describes the types of fabrics and preforms used in the manufacture of advanced composites and related selection, design, manufacturing, and performance considerations. The types of fabrics and preforms include unidirectional and two-directional fabrics; multidirectionally reinforced fabrics; hybrid fabrics; woven fabric prepregs; unidirectional and multidirectional tape prepregs; and the prepreg tow. The article discusses three major categories of tape manufacturing processes, namely, the hand lay-up, machine-cut patterns that are laid up by hand, and the automatic machine lay-up. It provides a description of the two classes of prepregs. These include those that are suitable for high-performance applications and suitable for lower-performance molding compounds.

In-process inspection during composite material lay-up is essential if the structural, dimensional, and environmental performance designed into a part is to be consistently achieved. This article discusses the requirements to be met by the facilities and equipment to produce high-quality composites. It reviews the procedures that are allowed and prohibited in controlled-contamination areas of lay-up. The article emphasizes significant areas, such as material control and lay-up process, in which quality-control personnel can be effective in preventing production problems. It concludes with a discussion on automated tape laying and fiber placement, as well as the numerically aided lay-up process.

Wet lay-up using hand or spray techniques is one of the simplest methods of combining a fiber reinforcement with a solidifying resin to form a composite structure. This article describes several wet lay-up processes - including contact molding, spray molding, vacuum bag molding, and autoclave molding - suited for making parts on open-faced molds using polyester and vinyl ester resins. The article also provides information on mechanically assisted lay-up which can be automated to alleviate some of the manual work.

This article reviews the history of prepreg and ply cutting technologies and outlines the options available for creating the necessary data and for nesting, cutting, and kitting the plies. It discusses the ways in which these steps influence the workflow for various applications. The characteristics of prepreg and ply cutting methods are presented in a table.

This article describes the chemistry of phenolic resins and reviews their characteristics and properties for various composites fabrication processes. The fabrication processes include solution/hot-melt process, pultrusion, vacuum infusion, filament winding, sheet molding, and hand lay-up. The article illustrates the manufacturing process of phenolic honeycomb and provides information on the applications of phenolic composites.

This article schematically illustrates a fiber placement system and provides information on the applications of fiber placement. It discusses materials and design considerations for fiber placement. The article provides information on techniques that can be used to eliminate areas of missing tows.

Ultrasonic inspection is a nondestructive technique that is useful in both quality control and research applications for flaw detection in fiber-reinforced composite materials. This article describes ultrasonic nondestructive analysis by outlining its three basic types of scans. It reviews the important quality control techniques used during the manufacture of composite components by analyzing tooling control, material control, pattern orientation control, and in-process control.

Automated tape laying is a mature process used in both commercial and military aircraft applications. This article provides a brief history of the process and describes the use of commercially available flat and contour tape-laying equipment. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the tape laying. The article describes the various components of a ten-axis gantry-type tape laying machine and the tape laying process. It provides a discussion on typical material types and forms for tape laying and provides information on design guidelines for tape laying.

This article describes the characteristics of thermoplastic composites and its material forms. It presents the steps and considerations in manufacturing the thermoplastic composites. The article describes the various techniques of manufacturing, such as consolidation, autoclave molding, diaphragm forming, compression molding, roll forming, bladder molding, liquid molding, filament winding, and pultrusion.

Vacuum infusion is a resin injection technique derived from resin transfer molding. This article discusses the characteristics of the technique and its applications. It presents the theory and background of the technique and provides an illustration of how parts are made. The article provides information on the equipment and material used for vacuum infusion. It describes the mechanical properties of components and summarizes the influence of production on the properties. The article concludes with a discussion on design guidelines.

This article describes processes and equipment that are used to produce composite tubular parts. The processes include sheeting, pattern cutting, tube rolling, shrink tape debulking, and finishing. The article provides a discussion on materials that are most suitable for tube rolling: preimpregnated materials and unidirectional tapes. The article also discusses wrapping techniques of cylindrical and tapered tubes, such as convolute and spiral wrapping.

This article addresses the types, properties, forms, and applications of fibers that are available for use in fiber-reinforced polymeric matrix composites, including glass, graphite, carbon, aramid, boron, silicon carbide, ceramic, continuous oxide and discontinuous oxide fibers. It describes the functions, types, and chemical composition of fiber sizing agents. The article discusses the styles, properties, applications, and weaving methods of unidirectional, two-directional and multidirectionally reinforced fabrics. The article also reviews the use of prepreg resins in aerospace and lower performance applications.

Composite tooling is the making of tools from composite materials. This article focuses on wet lay-up methods and techniques that are used to fabricate prepreg tooling. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of composite tools. The article describes the process considerations for composite tool design, such as master model or pattern design selection, fiber and fabric selection, resins, and surface coat and ply. Various tool laminate construction techniques, such as curing and demolding, and cutting and trimming, are reviewed. The article also describes the substructure design for the construction of tool laminates.

This article illustrates the polymer matrices used for composite materials. It describes the use of prepeg materials in manufacturing high-performance composites. The article discusses the various infusion processes for the development of fiber-reinforced composites, namely, resin transfer molding, vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding, and resin film infusion. It explains the composite- and matrix-toughening methods for fiber-reinforced composites, such as dispersed-phase toughening and interlayer toughening. The article concludes with information on optical microscopy, which provides an insight into the micro- and macrostructure of fiber-reinforced composites.

This article describes common design criteria and identifies the design considerations that have a significant effect on the end product. The design criteria include cost, size, mechanical properties, repeatability and precision of parts, damage tolerance and durability, and environmental constraints.

This article focuses on the design process, materials, and manufacturing techniques for one-off and low-volume production sailing craft. These include racing yachts of typically 10-20 m length for short coastal events, 20-25 m ocean racers, 24 m America's Cup racing craft, multihull racers of 35 m or more, and large luxury cruising craft. The article discusses the tooling, laminating practice, curing, mold removal, and quality control, for manufacturing hulls, decks, masts, and appendages using composites.

Manufacturing process selection is a critical step in plastic product design. The article provides an overview of the functional requirements that a part must fulfil before process selection is attempted. A brief discussion on the effects of individual thermoplastic and thermosetting processes on plastic parts and the material properties is presented. The article presents process effects on molecular orientation. It also illustrates the thinking that goes into the selection of processes for size, shape, and design factors. Finally, the article describes how various processes handle reinforcement.