Experimental investigation on the Co-cure processing of honeycomb structure with self-adhesive prepreg

To optimize the co-cure processing of honeycomb sandwich composites, three parameters, namely the ramp rate, pressure and application time of pressure were varied. Meanwhile, the inner pressure profile was on-line monitored to reveal the influence mechanism the final quality of the samples. Fillet size, resin content and porosity were used to characterize the bonding performance and panel quality. In addition, the climbing drum peeling strength was applied to characterize the interfacial bonding performance of the sandwich structure. It is found that product with the good fillet and little void content in the panels can be obtained by applying pressure of 0.4 MPa after holding 50 min at 100 °C; plus force induced by the surface tension partly contributes to the formation of fillets; ramp rate of temperature has a significant influence on the quality of the panel and gas permeation of the panels should be considered during the optimization of operating conditions.