Curing Vinyl Ester Particle-reinforced Composites using Microwaves

Composites made from vinyl ester resins suffer considerable shrinkage during curing and after solidification. This project attempts to reduce the shrinkage of the components by shortening the curing time of the resins using penetrating microwave energy. The amount of initiator used to initiate polymerization and the input power of microwave energy are varied to obtain an optimum combination of these parameters for minimum shrinkage of the composite components. The original contribution of this paper is to have flyash particulate-reinforced vinyl ester resins cured under microwave conditions with a view to reducing the shrinkage of the composites during curing; this aim is fully achieved.