Investigating the aging of release coating in aerospace composites manufacturing

Abstract

During aerospace composites manufacturing, release coating is applied on tools to minimize adhesive bonding and facilitate the removal of cured parts. For prepreg manufacturing, the aerospace industry typically uses semi-permanent release coatings that require frequent reapplications to mitigate aging effects. Release coatings are often over- or under-applied due to a lack of knowledge regarding the relationship between aging and processing. Understanding the relationship between aging and processing is critical to ensure end-part quality. This paper presents the investigation of aging in release coating using FTIR. The FTIR absorbance peak intensities of functional groups in release coating are shown to be valuable for qualitative evaluation of aging.