Abstract
The temperature distribution of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy flat plates coated with a thin oxy-acetylene flame-sprayed aluminum-12silicon coating was determined experimentally. The composite plates were fabricated by filament winding. Following winding, but prior to and during curing, garnet sand was uniformly distributed on the glass fiber-reinforced epoxy plate surface. The sand roughened the surface such that there was adhesion of the aluminum-12silicon particles to the surface. A resistive heating wire was attached to the coated surface. Thermocouples were attached to the composite and coating surfaces to measure transient and spatial surface temperature distributions. The spatial temperature of the coating and polymer surfaces decayed uniformly throughout the coating-composite ensemble from the heating wire. It was also observed that the coating served to increase the surface temperature of the coating-polymer system compared to uncoated samples. This was attributed to the large thermal conductivity of the metal coating and the low thickness of the samples.
