Last modified: 2010-09-06
Abstract
Composite materials have good rigidity-to-weight and strength-to-weight ratios, thanks to the combination of properties of the matrix and the reinforcement. However most of the production means rely on manual steps and therefore is costly for an industrial product. Pultrusion is an automated technological process to continuous production of product with constant section in composite materials. The terms derives from pull and extrusion, since the process include an extrusion process where the glass fibers are loaded with a tensile load that makes possible to correctly align the fibers before the matrix is polymerized (Figure 1). This process allows to manufacture complicated constant section profile without many of the problems involved in metallic extruded profiles. It's easily automatable in an industrial context, lowering the production costs...